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THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 


.     BY 
CHARLES  EDWARD  SMITH,  D.D. 

Author  of  "Baptism  in  Fire," 
*'The  World  Lighted" 


"  Walk  about  Zion,  and  go  round  about  her  ! 
Tell  the  towers  thereof  1 
Mark  ye  well  her  bulwarks  I 
Consider  her  palaces  I 
That  ye  may  tell  it  to  the  generations  following." 

Psalms  xlviii:  12,  13. 

"The  supreme  need  of  the  hour  is  not  elastic  currency,  or  sounder 
banking,  or  better  protection  against  panics,  or  bigger  navies,  or 
more  equitable  tariffs,  but  a  revival  of  faith,  a  return  to  a  morality 
which  recognizes  a  basis  in  rdigion."  „,  ^,  ^ 

Wall  Street  Journal. 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  6-  COMPANY 

1910 


Copyright,  1910 
Sherman,  French  &>  Company 


TO 

MY  BELOVED  • 

WIFE   AND    DAUGHTER 
AND  THE  TWO  FRIENDS 

ASSOCIATION  WITH  WHOM  HAS  LONG  GIVEN 
ME  SO  MUCH  PLEASURE  AND  WHO,  BY  THEIR 
INTEREST  IN  THIS  WORK  AND  THEIR  WISE 
COUNSEL  REGARDING  IT,  HAVE  CONTRIBUTED 
TO  ITS  PRODUCTION,  IT  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 


FOREWORD 

I  deem  it  only  fairness  to  myself  and  my  read- 
ers to  say  that  the  facts  given  are,  primarily,  the 
facts  of  my  own  faith,  which  I  recognize  as  as- 
sured beyond  reasonable  doubt,  and  therefore 
rest  upon  without  misgiving. 

At  the  same  time  since  my  faith  and  the  facts 
which  it  recognizes  are,  in  general,  the  same  that 
are  known  as  Protestant  Christianity,  they  have 
the  endorsement  of  that  great  body  of  Christian 
people  whose  claim  to  be  the  most  intelligent, 
well-informed,  and  consistent  representatives  of 
Christianity  it  is  hard  to  dispute. 

Moreover,  since  other  very  large  communions 
claiming  to  be  Christians,  while  differing  very 
widely  from  Protestants  in  many  important  re- 
spects, yet  agree  with  them  regarding  many 
fundamental  facts  and  truths,  this  agreement 
must  be  admitted  to  swell  to  very  large  propor- 
tions the  number  of  those  for  whom  the  facts  of 
this  book  are  the  real  and  undisputed  "facts  of 
the  Faith." 

I  have  set  them  down  vmder  the  impulse  to 
make  clear  to  myself  just  what  I  believe,  and 
what  good  and  sufficient  reason  I  have  for  be- 
lieving it,  knowing  full  well  how  much  is  gained 


FOREWORD 

in  clearness  of  thought,  and  precision  of  state- 
ment, and,  therefore,  in  confidence  of  correctness, 
by  compelling  one's  self  to  reduce  the  random 
and  floating  ideas  of  the  mind  to  exact  and  posi- 
tive expression. 

But  although  this  work  has  been  done,  first  of 
all,  for  my  own  benefit,  I  am  not  without  the 
strong  hope  that  it  may  prove  of  advantage  to 
others. 

Robert  Browning  once  wrote  to  a  friend, 
"  I  want  you  to  give  my  conviction  a  cMnch." 

There  are  a  good  many  of  us,  Christian 
believers,  who  need  to  have  our  convictions 
chnched.  We  have  been  living  so  long  in  an 
atmosphere  of  doubt;  unbelief  has  been  so  ar- 
rogant and  aggressive,  and  never  more  so  than 
now,  that  it  is  not  strange  that  faith  should 
sometimes  waver  as  to  the  value  of  its  own  evi- 
dences. 

It  will  be  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  if  this 
exhibit  of  facts  of  faith,  which  reassures  me, 
should  also  reassure  any  of  my  brothers  who 
have  been  unnecessarily  alarmed  by  the  giant 
fire-crackers  of  infidehty. 

And  if,  in  addition  to  this,  I  am  able  to 
awaken  the  attention,  arouse  the  interest,  and 
enlist  the  serious  and  heartfelt  consideration  of 
other  minds  in  matters  which  so  greatly  concern 


FOREWORD 

them  as  facts  of  Christian  faith,  I  shall  accom- 
plish a  purpose  for  which  I  shall  be  profoundly 
grateful,  and  with  which  I  am  sure  God  will  be 
well  pleased. 

C.  E.  S. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Value  of  Facts   ....  1 

n.  The  Selection  of  Facts  ...  8 

m.  Faith    Its    Own    Judge    of    the 

Facts 11 

rV.  The  Fact  of  Self ^1 

V.  The  Fact  of  Revelation  ...  3^ 

VI.  The  Fact  of  Jesus  Christ  .      .  39 

VII.  The  Fact  of  the  Church    .      .  4*5 

Vni.  The  Fact  of   Christian  Experi- 
ence    .     ^ 50 

IX.  The  Fact  of  Nature  ,      ...  55 

X.  Disputed  Facts  Now  Proved  .      .  63 

XI.  A  Final  Survey  of  the  Facts   .  77 


THE    VALUE    OF    FACTS 

There  are  a  good  many  people  who  do  not 
know  the  value  of  facts  —  at  any  rate  in  the 
most  important  province  of  thought  and  life, 
which  is,  of  course,  the  province  of  religion. 

They  have  an  idea  that  all  religions  are 
equally  true,  and,  perhaps,  equally  false.  They 
see  that  the  votaries  of  each  seem  equally  cer- 
tain of  the  truth  and  value  of  their  own  system, 
and  equally  determined  to  live  and  die  accord- 
ing to  its  teachings.  From  this  they  conclude 
that  these  various  religions  are  either  of  no  con- 
sequence at  all,  or  are  all  equally  useful  for  re- 
ligious purposes. 

Is  there,  then,  no  important  difference  between 
them.?  Is  there  no  means  of  discriminating  the 
true  from  the  false,  and  the  real  and  precious 
from  the  unreal  and  worthless? 

Suppose  it  could  and  should  be  shown  that 
Christianity,  and  Christianity  alone,  is  based  on 
facts,  and  that  all  others  are  based  on  fictions! 
Would  that  not  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  re- 
garding Christianity  as  the  one  true  and  abso- 
1 


a  '  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

lute  religion,  and  all  the  others  as  counterfeits, 
which  must,  sooner  or  later,  pass  away  ? 

The  superior  value  of  facts  in  other  directions 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  realizing. 

A  gold  mine  is  a  fact.  That  gold  is  actually 
taken  fromi  such  a  mine,  there  is  abundant  and 
satisfactory  evidence,  which  puts  the  matter  be- 
yond all  doubt. 

That  gold  can  be  extracted  from  baser  metals, 
such  as  lead  and  iron,  is  a  theory,  which  was 
widely  received  in  the  middle  ages,  and  many 
lives  and  much  treasure  were  devoted  to  the  dis- 
covery of  a  process  by  which  gold  could  be  ob- 
tained from  that  source.  Occasionally  this 
theory  is  revived  in  these  days.  But  nobody 
has  ever  succeeded  in  getting  gold  in  this  way, 
though  the  alchemists,  as  they  were  called,  were 
very  sure  it  could  be  done. 

A  gold  mine  is  a  positive,  substantial,  certain 
fcwt,  in  which  it  is  wise  and  sane  to  believe. 

Alchemy  is  an  unproved  theory,  in  which  to 
put  any  confidence  would  be  foolish  in  the  ex- 
treme. 

Wireless  telegraphy  was  at  first  a  mere  theory, 
which  might  possibly  be  true,  but  which  needed 
to  be  demonstrated  before  it  could  be  accepted. 
But  when,  in  crossing  the  ocean,  I  actually  read 
a   message   which   a   fellow   passenger  had   re- 


THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH  3 

ceived  from  his  father  on  board  a  steamship  a 
hundred  miles  away,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry 
telegraphed  by  my  fellow  passenger  from  our 
own  ship,  I  was  sure  that  wireless  telegraphy 
was  no  longer  a  mere  theory ;  it  had  become  an 
accomplished  fact. 

A  theory  may  be  true  or  it  may  be  false. 
While  that  remains  undetermined,  conduct  can- 
not be  safely  based  upon  it.  But  a  fact  is  a 
sure  foundation,  if  it  be  big  enough  and  strong 
enough,  for  the  superstructure  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  rear. 

The  examples  which  have  been  given  illustrate 
the  superior  value  of  facts  over  theories.  In 
one  case  the  facts  destroyed  the  theory,  though 
it  had  been  long  and  tenaciously  held;  in  the 
other  the  facts  established  the  theory,  though 
it  had  been  stubbornly  disputed  and  widely  dis- 
believed. 

Every  trial  in  a  court  of  justice  makes  mani- 
fest the  general  realization  of  the  superior  im- 
portance of  facts.  Witnesses  are  questioned 
as  to  the  facts  they  know,  not  the  opinions  they 
may  hold,  regarding  the  merits  of  the  case  under 
consideration.  Each  advocate  endeavors  to 
show  that  the  facts  are  on  his  side  rather  than  on 
his  opponent's. 

The  single  fact  that  the  paper  on  which  a 


4  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

promissory  note  was  written  bore  a  water-mark 
later  than  the  date  once  overturned  all  the  claims 
and  arguments  of  the  holder  of  the  note. 

The  fact  that  the  almanac  showed  that  the 
moon  was  not  shining,  on  a  certain  night  in 
which  a  person  was  accused  of  having  committed 
a  crime,  proved  the  accused  to  be  innocent,  and 
secured  his  acquittal. 

All  progress  in  science  is  progress  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  facts.  Theories  are  main- 
tained or  abandoned  as  they  are  found  to  agree 
or  disagree  with  the  facts  ascertained.  It  was 
once  believed  that  the  world  was  flat,  and  George 
Kennan  found  a  high  Buddhist  dignitary  in 
Siberia  who  still  adheres  to  that  notion ;  but  the 
world  generally  knows  too  much  to  do  that. 
The  single  fact  that  the  earth  can  be  sailed 
around  destroys  the  theory. 

Right  here  it  becomes  necessary  to  show  the 
difference  between  faith  and  credulity.  They 
are  often  confounded,  and  spoken  of  as  essen- 
tially the  same. 

Faith  is  confidence  in  facts,  and  truths  ^u^p"- 
ported  hy  facts.  Credulity  is  confidence  in 
theories,  or  imaginations,  or  assertions,  which 
are  unsubstantiated  by  facts  or  any  reliable 
proof. 

Faith  is  often  misrepresented  as   confidence 


THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH  5 

which  is  the  strongest  when  that  which  is  be- 
lieved in  is  the  most  improbable.  On  the  con- 
trary, faith  demands  not  only  probability,  but 
probability  approaching  certainty.  It  asks  for 
positive  and  incontrovertible  evidence.  It  is 
credulity  that  is  willing  to  believe  without  evi- 
dence, and,  though  it  sometimes  strains  out  a 
gnat,  swallows  a  camel  without  difficulty.  The 
wilder  the  fiction,  the  greater  the  lie,  the  more 
impossible  the  fraud,  the  readier  is  credulity  to 
believe  in  it  and  to  live  by  it. 

I  say  believe,  and  as  credulity  believes,  so  it 
may  be  said  to  have  a  kind  of  faith.  It  is 
obvious  that  we  must  discriminate  between  the 
two  senses  in  which  the  word  is  used.  By  faith 
I  mean  that  which  saves,  not  that  which 
destroys.  I  mean  the  faith  which  is  said,  in 
Scripture,  to  work  by  love,  and  purify  the 
heart,  and  overcome  the  world  —  that  is.  Chris- 
tian faith. 

If,  now,  it  can  be  shown  that  Christian  faith 
alone  rests  upon  facts,  and  truths  supported  by 
facts,  and  all  other  religions,  as  well  as  irre- 
ligious, have  no  facts  worthy  of  confidence,  the 
vast  difi^erence  between  Christianity  and  other 
beliefs  and  unbeliefs  will  disclose  itself,  and 
Christian  faith  take  its  rightful  place  as  the 
only  belief  that  is  any  better  than  credulity. 


6  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

It  becomes  all  the  more  necessary  to  perceive 
this  for  the  reason  that  we  are  being*  assured  in 
our  day,  as  perhaps  never  before,  that  the  facts 
of  Christianity  are  of  no  consequence. 

The  assailants  of  Christianity  attempt  to 
shake  public  confidence  in  every  historical  state- 
ment in  both  Old  and  New  Testaments.  They 
endeavor  to  take  away  from  us  the  facts  of 
Revelation,  Incarnation,  the  Sinless  Christ,  his 
Atoning  Death,  his  Triumphant  Resurrection, 
and  everything  beside  on  which  Faith  can  rest. 

But  at  the  same  time  they  assure  us  that 
Christianity  remains;  that  these  facts  are  of  no 
consequence;  that  we  still  have  the  essential 
ideas  of  Christianity;  that  the  temple  of  truth 
which  has  been  built  upon  the  "  foundation  of 
the  apostles  and  prophets,"  Jesus  Christ  himself 
being  "  the  chief  comer-stone,"  will  still  stand, 
and  even  be  firmer  than  before,  when  its  founda- 
tion is  taken  away. 

What  is  this?      Is  it  common  sense.? 

Is  it  the  unthinking  carelessness  of  miners, 
who  in  their  greediness  for  gain  excavate  great 
caverns  beneath  a  town  until  its  weight  breaks 
the  crust,  and  it  tumbles  into  the  abyss? 

Is  it  the  strategy  of  enemies,  who  conceal 
their  sapping  and  mining  from  the  garrison  of 
the  fortress  they  are  besieging,  until  they  have 


THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH  7 

placed  their  explosives  beneath  the  fortifications, 
and  can  topple  them  into  ruins? 

Or  is  it  only  the  brainless  word-mongering  of 
theorists,  hke  the  old  philosophers,  who  said  that 
all  the  qualities  of  a  substance  may  be  removed, 
and  yet  the  substance  remains? 

Whatever  it  is,  it  is  best  that  we  should  ap- 
praise it  at  its  real  value. 

If  the  enemies  of  Christianity  make  great  ef- 
forts to  remove  the  facts  on  which  it  rests,  do 
they  not  thereby  show  how  important  those  facts 
are  in  their  own  estimation  ? 

Let  us  not  be  cheated  out  of  that  which  is 
unspeakably  precious!  Let  no  one,  whether 
he  be  seeming  friend  or  apparent  foe,  deceive  us 
as  to  the  value  of  the  great  facts  of  religion  on 
which  Christianity,  and  Christianity  alone,  rests 
with  a  firmness  and  immovableness  like  that  of 
the  everlasting  hiUs ! 


n 

THE  SELECTION  OF  FACTS 

If  it  should  be  claimed  that  other  religions 
besides  the  Christian  are  also  based  upon  facts, 
it  becomes  necessary  to  ask,  what  hind  of  facts 
afford  a  true  and  safe  foundation  for  a  religious 
hope? 

In  some  sense,  everything  is  a  fact,  or  per- 
haps it  may  be  better  to  say  that  there  is  a  fact 
about  everything.  It  is  a  fact  that  men  have 
had  all  sorts  of  notions,  fancies,  dreams,  and 
have  made  all  sorts  of  guesses,  on  every  con- 
ceivable subject.  But  all  those  notions,  fancies, 
dreams  and  guesses  have  not  been  correct,  val- 
uable and  practical  conceptions  of  the  subjects 
about  which  they  have  been  made. 

On  the  contrary,  many  of  them  have  been 
false,  worthless,  misleading  and  pernicious  when 
the  subject  had  any  important  relation  to  life, 
conduct  and  happiness. 

A  small  boy  having  heard  that  Mr.  Roosevelt 

had    gone   to    Africa   to   shoot   lions,    left   his 

father's  house  in  an  American  town,  expecting 

to  shoot  lions  with  his  toy  gun.     It  was  a  fact 

8 


THE  SELECTION  OF  FACTS         9 

that  he  had  such  an  expectation,  but  there  were 
no  facts  on  which  such  an  expectation  could  be 
reasonably  based. 

Savages  in  Africa  are  said  to  be  in  mortal 
fear  of  a  gigantic  scare-crow,  called  Mumbo 
Jumbo.  A  man  of  whom  they  have  no  fear  at 
all  in  his  ordinary  appearance  disguises  him- 
self with  a  towering  head-dress  of  sticks  and  old 
clothes,  and  straightway  he  becomes  the  arbiter 
of  life  and  death,  and  is  submitted  to  and  wor- 
shipped as  a  god.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  savages 
have  these  absurd  and  degrading  ideas,  but  those 
ideas  do  not  spring  from  any  facts  worthy  of  the 
consideration  of  a  rational  being. 

We  must  wisely  select  our  facts,  then,  when  we 
set  out  to  choose  our  religion.  The  kind  of 
facts  on  which  any  religion  is  based  determines 
the  character  of  the  religion. 

Are  all  religions  based  on  equally  substantial 
and  pertinent  facts?  If  not,  then  they  are  not 
all  equally  worthy  of  respect  and  confidence. 
If,  upon  investigation,  it  should  be  found  that 
one,  and  but  one,  and  that  one,  Christianity, 
has  the  facts  to  support  it  which  religion  ab- 
solutely needs  —  then  we  must  conclude  that 
only  Christianity  is  entitled  to  our  confidence, 
and  must  command  and  obtain  our  confidence. 


10  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

This  is  what  the  Author  of  the  Christian 
reHgion  himself  claimed.  He  said :  "  There- 
fore, whosoever  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine, 
and  doeth  them,  I  will  liken  him  unto  a  wise 
man,  which  built  his  house  upon  a  rock;  and  the 
rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the 
winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house ;  and  it  fell 
not;  for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock."  (Matt, 
vii.  M) 

Was  he  not  right  in  reminding  us  that  we  must 
have  firm  foundations  for  our  religion? 

One's  religion  is  the  house  of  his  soul,  within 
which  he  must  find  rest  from  care,  comfort  from 
sorrow,  safety  from  those  tremendous  storms  of 
remorse  and  retribution  to  which,  as  a  sinful  and 
responsible  being,  he  is  liable,  sooner  or  later. 
It  needs  to  be  built  on  rock,  not  sand. 

Religion  is  the  bridge  on  which  the  soul  must 
cross  the  gulf  between  earth  and  heaven.  Its 
piers  must  be  sunk  through  the  concealing  waters 
and  the  overlying  mud  to  the  bed-rock  of  the 
sea.  No  matter  how  much  time  and  trouble  it 
may  cost;  that  rock  must  be  reached  and  built 
upon,  or  the  bridge  is  worthless. 

What  is  that  rock.?  What  are  those  rock- 
like facts  which  together  may  furnish  a  founda- 
tion as  steadfast  and  immovable  as  the  moun- 
tains ? 


Ill 


FAITH  ITS   OWN   JUDGE  OF  THE 
FACTS 

The  right,  duty  and  necessity  of  private 
judgment,  in  all  matters  affecting  welfare,  duty 
and  destiny,  are  illustrated  and  enforced  by  many 
of  the  saddest  and  most  tragic  pages  of  human 
history. 

How  many  fatal  accidents  have  occurred  at  rail- 
road crossings  of  public  thoroughfares,  because 
of  too  trustful  dependence  upon  careless  flag- 
men, and  the  failure  to  use  their  own  eyes  and 
ears  most  sedulously  by  those  who  were  ven- 
turing into  dangerous  places! 

The  power  to  doubt  is  the  necessary  balance 
of  the  power  to  trust,  and  the  safety  of  the  soul, 
in  a  world  like  ours,  is  guarded  by  its  intelli- 
gent and  judicious  exercise. 

That  part  of  the  Bible  which  exhorts  us  to 
put  our  hearty  faith  in  its  proper  objects  is  no 
wiser  or  more  divine  than  its  earnest  warnings 
not,  credulously,  to  accept  the  ideas  and  pre- 
tensions of  false  teachers  and  false  prophets. 
That  these  warnings  are  needed  is  proved  by  the 
tremendous  fact  that  the  religious  history  of 
11 


12  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

the  greater  part  of  mankind,  down  to  the  present 
time,  has  been  that  of  blind  leaders  of  the  blind, 
of  great  multitudes  accepting,  unquestioningly, 
the  pretensions  of  impostors,  and  of  whole  na- 
tions and  races  hopelessly  ensnared  by  an  un- 
scrupulous and  tyrannical  priestcraft. 

It  is  for  every  one,  then,  as  he  cares  for  his 
eternal  destiny,  to  judge  for  himself,  with  all 
the  faculties  he  possesses  and  all  the  help  he 
can  get,  what  the  facts  of  religion  really  are, 
and  how  they  affect  his  own  soul's  welfare,  and 
that  of  others  for  whom  he  cares  and  for  whose 
guidance  he  is  responsible. 

And  Christian  faith  must  judge  for  itself, 
with  all  its  native  and  acquired  qualifications, 
what  facts  it  can  and  must  recognize  as  true 
and  solid  foundations. 

I  want  to  show  how  many  the  facts  are,  how 
great  they  are,  how  substantial,  how  sufficient, 
as  the  strong,  indestructible  foundation  on  which 
Faith,  and  Faith  alone,  may  be  seen  to  rest. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  Faith  often  fails  to 
understand  and  appreciate  itself,  and  am  sure 
that  those  who^  do  not  possess  it  underrate  and 
despise  it.  They  do  not  perceive  how  mighty  a 
power  it  is,  and  how  beneficent  its  function  in 
human  life  and  human  history.  They  con- 
found it  with  credulity,  and  regard  doubt  as  the 


FAITH  ITS  OWN  JUDGE  13 

superior  faculty.  They  suppose  that,  like 
credulity,  it  builds  its  house  of  confidence  and 
hope  on  the  "  wood,  hay  and  stubble  "  of  fancies 
and  speculations  and  falsehoods,  instead  of  the 
"  gold,  silver  and  precious  stones  "  of  realities 
and  well  ascertained  truth. 

I  would  like  to  show  how  mistaken,  and  there- 
fore misleading  and  pernicious,  are  these  ideas, 
and  how  much  more  confident  of  itself  Faith  has 
a  right  to  be  than  it  often  is. 

I  would  have  Faith  foUow  the  counsel  of 
Scripture  to  "  walk  about  Zion,  and  go  round 
about  her;  teU  the  towers  thereof.  Mark  ye 
weU  her  bulwarks,  consider  her  palaces;  that  ye 
may  tell  it  to  the  generation  following." 
(Psalm  xlviii.  12,  13) 

I  believe  that  if  we  can  take  this  walk  to- 
gether, and  observe  these  "  towers  "  and  "  bul- 
warks," we  shall  be  so  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  they  are  impregnable  as  to  be  able  to  rest 
in  the  assurance  that  "  this  God  is  our  God  for 
ever  and  ever;  he  will  be  our  guide  even  unto 
death." 

But  in  order  to  reach  this  assurance  we  must 
proceed  thoughtfully,  intelHgently,  with  an 
honest  purpose  to  discover  the  truth,  and  a  will- 
ingness to  give  it  fair  and  thorough  considera- 
tion. 


14  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

Above  all,  we  must  be  clear.  We  must  take 
no  step  without  knowing  just  what  we  mean. 
Religious  errors  and  uncertainties  are  largely 
the  result  of  ignorances,  misrepresentations  and 
misapprenhensions. 

There  are  too  many  who  are  satisfied  to  see 
truth  dimly  and  indefinitely,  like  Edward  Irving, 
the  friend  of  Carlyle,  and  for  a  time  the  assist- 
ant of  Dr.  Thomas  Chalmers.  Alluding  to  the 
exactness  and  precision  of  Chalmers  in  his  teach- 
ing, Irving  said  that,  for  his  part,  he  liked  to 
see  an  idea  "  looming  up  through  a  fog." 

There  are  too  many  spiritual  navigators  who 
are  unwilling  to  take  the  trouble  to  decide 
whether  it  be  land  or  fog  toward  which  they  are 
sailing,  and  therefore  get  wrecked  on  an  iron- 
bound  coast. 

Edward  Irving's  mental  habit  finally  carried 
him  and  his  church  upon  the  reef  of  a  fanatical 
belief  that  they  could  exercise  the  power  of 
speaking  with  hitherto  unknown  tongues,  such 
as  were  spoken  in  the  apostolic  age. 

Let  us  understand  at  the  outset,  then,  just 
what  we  mean  by  faith  as  well  as  what  we  mean 
by  factSy  when  we  are  about  to  survey  the  Facts 
of  Faith. 

By  faith  I  mean  that  noblest  exercise  of  the 
power  of  trusting  in  persons  or  things,  which. 


FAITH  ITS  OWN  JUDGE  15 

in  a  world  where  there  were  no  deceptions  or 
illusions,  deceivers  or  impostors,  would  be  the 
normal  feehng-  of  the  soul,  and  at  once  a  privi- 
lege, a  duty  and  a  joy. 

By  faith  I  mean  the  power  which  the  Christian 
soul  possesses,  though  it  finds  itself  in  a  world 
where  appearances  are  often  deceitful  and  false 
teachers  abound,  of  selecting  the  objects  of  its 
confidence  with  all  needful  prudence,  calling  to 
its  aid  all  its  faculties  of  investigation  and 
judgment,  and,  when  satisfied  of  their  worthi- 
ness, reposing  in  them  a  trust  strong  because  in- 
telligent, and  unfaltering  because  bulwarked  by 
proof. 

And  what  do  I  mean  by  facts?  I  mean  events 
which  have  certainly  taken  place,  truths  which 
have  been  established,  beings  and  things  whose 
reality  is  sufficiently  apparent  to  the  faith  which 
I  have  described. 

Faith  which  realizes  the  supreme  importance 
of  its  quest  appreciates  its  responsibility  for 
making  true  decisions,  uses  all  its  faculties  and 
opportunities  for  investigation,  takes  time 
enough  to  fully  consider  and  reconsider  its  con- 
clusions; it  is  this  faith  which  I  make  the  quali- 
fied judge  of  what  deserve  to  be  called  facts, 
which  demand  and  must  receive  consideration  in 
the    settlement    of    great    religious    questions. 


16  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

The  facts  which  such  a  faith  recognizes,  ac- 
cepts and  uses  it  may  well  feel  sure  of,  even 
though  they  are  denied  by  more  than  one  class 
of  persons. 

The  skeptic  who  cultivates  doubt  until  it  be- 
comes a  mental  disease,  and  reaches  its  climax 
in  doubting  that  he  doubts,  shows  a  lack  of 
sound  judgment,  which  deprives  his  opinion  of 
all  value. 

Isaac  Taylor,  an  acute  English  philosopher, 
said  "  To  one  who  affected  to  question  the  re- 
ceived account  of  the  death  of  Julius  Csesar,  we 
should  not  say  '  you  want  faith,'  but  '  you.  want 
sense.' " 

The  theorist  who  is  so  possessed  by  his 
theory  that  facts  which  disagree  with  it  and 
destroy  it  remain  unseen  and  disregarded,  is  not 
a  judge  whose  opinions  can  be  respected.  There 
have  always  been  many  such  persons,  whose  in- 
fatuation with  ideas  which  pleased  them  has 
rendered  them  blind  and  deaf  to  the  facts  which 
rendered  those  ideas  impossible. 

At  this  present  time,  the  theory  that  all  re- 
ligious ideas  have  been  evolved  by  man  out  of 
the  darkness  of  primeval  ignorance  and  sav- 
agery, without  the  least  aid  from  a  supernatural 
revelation,  is  persistently  maintained  by  many 
educated  men,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  such  a 


FAITH  ITS  OWN  JUDGE  17 

revelation  has  been  made  and  is  shedding  the 
light  of  a  revelation  all  around  us. 

It  is  like  denying  that  the  sun  shines  in  the 
full  radiance  of  the  noon  day. 

The  atheist  and  the  agnostic,  to  whom  this 
wonderful  Universe,  of  which  Alexander  Pope, 
in  his  Essay  on  Man,  so  truly  said,  "  Order  is 
Heaven's  first  law,"  presents  no  evidence  of  a 
Supreme  Mind,  and  who  can  beUeve,  or  seem  to 
believe,  that  the  adaptations,  adjustments  and 
contrivances  with  which  the  Universe  abounds, 
are  only  happenings  of  "  the  fortuitous  con- 
course "  of  uncreated  "  atoms,"  can  not  be  ex- 
pected to  accept  the  facts  of  Faith.  But  that 
rejection  loses  all  importance  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  the  most  likely  explanation  of  such 
minds  is  in  some  fatal  disease  of  the  perceptive 
and  reasoning  faculties,  which  renders  their  con- 
clusions on  such  matters  worthless.  So,  cer- 
tainly, thought  the  author  of  the  line, 

"  The  undevout  astronomer  is  mad.** 

An  astronomer  once  reproached  an  atheist  who 
inquired  who  was  the  maker  of  a  fine  orrery,  a 
mechanical  model  of  the  solar  system,  which 
he  found  in  the  astronomer's  study,  with  his  in- 
consistency in  refusing  to  believe  that  the  far 
superior  mechanism  of  the  Universe  had  a  Con- 


18  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

triver,  while  he  could  not  be  persuaded  that  the 
parts  of  the  orrery  had  come  together  by 
chance. 

There  is  another  who  cannot  be  expected  to 
accept  the  facts  of  Faith:  it  is  the  opposer  of 
Christianity/  because  it  is  too  good  for  hvm. 
Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  immoral 
and  unrighteous  dispositions  so  bias  and  cloud 
intelligence  that  the  mind  becomes  incapable  of 
correct  judgment. 

Richard  Cecil,  as  a  youth,  fell  into  depraved 
habits,  and  then  deliberately  read  infidel  books 
in  order  to  quiet  his  conscience  by  plausible 
answers  to  the  Bible.  In  this  way  he  became 
an  infidel  himself,  and  led  others  into  infidelity, 
whom  he  could  never  bring  back  again. 

Of  such  Jesus  said,  "  They  love  darkness 
rather  than  light  because  their  deeds  are  evil." 

Objections  to  the  facts  of  Faith  are,  then,  to 
be  expected  from  all  these  classes,  and  from 
others  not  here  mentioned;  but  there  is  some- 
thing about  them  all  which  makes  their  objec- 
tions worthless. 

The  skeptic,  full  of  morbid  doubt  about 
everything;  the  theorist,  enamored  of  his  hobby, 
and  as  incapable  of  rational  guidance  as  a  run- 
away horse  with  the  bit  between  his  teeth;  the 
agnostic,  who,  because  he  cannot  know  every- 


FAITH  ITS  OWN  JUDGE  19 

thing  about  God,  insists  that  he  cannot  know 
anything;  and  the  bad  man,  who  does  not  care 
what  is  true  or  right,  but  only  what  is  agreeable 
to  a  depraved  nature, —  the  fact  that  all  these 
deny  the  facts  of  Faith  is  not  an  argument 
against  them,  but  for  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  character  of  those  who 
accept  the  facts  of  Faith  is  a  powerful  argument 
for  the  correctness  of  those  facts.  It  is  the 
"  pure  in  heart "  who  "  see  God."  It  is  they 
"  who  wUl  do  the  wiU  of  God  "  who  may  expect 
to  "  know  of  the  doctrines."  Jesus  said,  "  They 
who  are  of  the  truth  hear  my  voice." 

If  we  can  have  the  consensus  of  such  spirits, 
we  may  be  sure  of  the  foundation  stones  on 
which  we  build  our  faith.  If  these  be  "  for  us  " 
it  matters  not  who  are  "  against  us." 

"  I  design  the  search  after  truth,"  said  Bishop 
Butler,  "  as  the  business  of  my  life."  Where 
is  the  person  among  all  the  opponents  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  acuteness  of  whose  intellect,  the 
openness  of  whose  mind,  the  fairness  of  whose 
judgment,  the  extent  of  whose  learning,  and  the 
excellence  of  whose  character,  qualify  him  to 
stand  side  by  side  with  Bishop  Butler,  the 
author  of  the  famous  Analogy,  of  which  the 
noble  Gladstone  edited  a  new  edition  in  the 
closing  years  of  his  memorable  C6u*eer.'^ 


«0  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  him.  But  the  peers 
of  Butler,  as  qualified  searchers  after  the  great 
truths  of  religion  —  may  I  not  say  without  fear 
of  contradiction? — ^  are  numberless  among 
those  who  accept  the  Christian  religion. 

We  have  a  right  to  feel  confidence  in  the  ver- 
dict of  such  a  jury. 

And  we  ourselves,  though  humble  and  obscure, 
if  our  search  be  honest,  careful  and  worthy  of 
the  subject,  may  well  hope  to  arrive  at  sane  and 
sound  conclusions  regarding  the  facts  of  faith. 


IV 

THE  FACT  OF  SELF 

Am  I  myself  a  fact?  And  is  this  question, 
necessarily,  the  beginning  of  Faith's  search  for 
certainty  ? 

Assuredly  it  is  the  beginning.  Presumptuous 
and  vain  as  it  may  seem,  when  we  are  looking  for 
rock-like  foundations  we  must  begin  with  our- 
selves. Humble  as  we  may  seem,  low  as  we  may 
estimate  our  own  powers,  uncertain  as  we  may 
be  about  much,  or  even  most,  of  what  is  in- 
cluded in  self,  we  must  be  sure  of  something  in 
that  self.  If  we  are  not  sure  of  ourselves  we 
can  be  sure  of  nothing  else. 

We  must  begin  here,  or  we  shall  end  no 
where ! 

To  begin  with,  I  must  be  sure  of  myself  as  an 
honest  seeker  after  truth. 

No  other  deserves  to  find  the  truth,  or  indeed 
is  capable  of  finding  it.  The  natural  and  in- 
evitable penalty  of  endeavoring  to  deceive  others 
is  to  deceive  one's  self. 

Not  to  be  fair  in  the  judgment  of  evidence, 
not  to  be  candid  in  the  consideration  of  facts, 
to  be  willing  to  mistake  error  for  truth,  and  to 


StSt  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

feel  pride  in  making  wrong  look  like  right,  is  to 
dtill  one's  perceptive  faculties,  and  to  foredoom 
one's  self  to  become  the  victim  of  illusions  and 
falsities. 

The  dishonest  soul  necessarily  doubts  honesty 
in  others.  There  is  not  in  himself  the  quality 
which  he  needs  to  find  elsewhere,  and  missing  it 
at  home,  in  his  own  soul,  he  suspects  its  absence 
everywhere. 

Faith  begins  and  must  begin  with  faith  in 
one's  self;  if  not  in  one's  sinlessness,  at  least  in 
one's  sincerity. 

That  is  the  first  fact  for  faith  to  build  with. 

And  the  second  is  that  the  tool  he  must  work 
with  to  acquire  real  knowledge,  the  structure  of 
his  own  mind,  is  an  honest  instrument,  so  con- 
structed as  to  give  correct  results,  and  not  to 
deceive  and  mislead  one. 

To  measure  with  a  yard  stick  that  is  more  or 
less  than  thirty-six  inches  is  to  mistake  the  length 
one  wishes  to  find.  To  weigh  with  dishonest 
scales  is  to  cheat  the  buyer. 

Theodore  Parker  once  wrote,  "  It  is  for  others 
to  decide  whether  I  have  mistaken  a  Httle  grain 
of  brilliant  dust  in  my  telescope  for  a  fixed  star 
in  heaven." 

But  one  must  know  for  himself  that  there  is 
no  dust  in  his  telescope  to  deceive  his  vision. 


THE  FACT  OF  SELF  23 

There  are  those  who  distrust  the  soul's  power 
to  discover  truth  on  account  of  the  deceptiveness 
of  its  faculties. 

They  think  that  the  very  plan  of  the  mind 
is  a  false  plan,  so  that  neither  do  the  senses  nor 
does  the  consciousness  tell  the  truth  about  what 
they  pretend  to  perceive.  If  this  were  true  we 
should  lack  the  very  capacity  for  knowledge. 
If  this  were  true  the  Author  of  our  being  would 
be  a  monster  of  deceptions,  and  the  Universe  a 
sham  and  an  illusion. 

At  the  outset,  then,  we  must  decide  whether  we 
will  accept  this  view,  or  begin  our  search  for 
facts  with  the  faith  that  an  honest  Universe 
awaits  our  study,  and  a  mind  honestly  con- 
structed, and  needing  only  to  be  fairly  used,  is 
to  serve  as  our  instrument. 

Let  me,  then,  set  down,  first  of  all,  the  facts 
that  I  am  sure  of  about  myself. 

/  am  perfectly  sure  of  my  own  existence;  that 
I  am  alive,  not  dead;  that  I  am  awake,  not 
dreaming;  that  my  life  is  a  reality,  not  an  illu- 
sion, and  is  to  be  reckoned  with  as  a  fact. 

I  am  sure  that  I  am  a  person,  a  conscious, 
thinking,  reasoning,  feeling,  willing,  acting 
person;  that,  as  such,  I  am  far  superior  to  and 
entirely  distinguishable  from  the  world  of 
thmgs;  that,  in  some  respects,  I  am  wonderfully 


ft4i  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

and  awfully  separate  from  all  other  persons,  in 
the  Universe,  while,  in  other  respects,  I  am  no 
less  wonderfully  and  awfully  related  to  them. 

/  am  sure  that  I  am  a  sovZ,  and  have  a  bodi/; 
that  however  useful  and  even  necessary  my  body 
is  in  this  present  state  of  existence,  it  is  only 
the  instrument  which  the  soul  uses,  and  not  the 
soul  itself.  That  it  should  be  as  good  an  in- 
strument as  possible,  and  therefore  is  to  be 
taken  care  of  most  sedulously,  is  a  matter  of 
course;  but  my  great  concern  should  be  regard- 
ing the  nature,  character  and  welfare  of  the 
soul,  which  is  myself. 

/  ami  sure  that  I  am  a  knowing  person ;  that, 
within  certain  limits,  I  have  the  power  of  recog- 
nizing facts  and  perceiving  truth.  Not  that  I 
can  know  everything  even  about  myself,  but  that 
I  can  know  something,  sufficient  for  practical 
purposes  in  any  important  direction. 

/  am  sure  that  this  power  of  knowing  extends 
so  far  that  I  am  perfectly  able  to  perceive  the 
truth  of  principles  and  the  reality  of  facts 
which  I  could  not  myself  discover.  What  some 
other  mind,  superior  to  mine  in  ability  and 
larger  in  knowledge,  might  reveal  to  me,  I  am 
entirely  competent  to  apprehend.  For  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  my  knowledge  I  am  indebted 
to  others  who  had  larger  powers  or  better  op- 


THE  FACT  OF  SELF    ,  «6 

portunities  than  my  own.  Isaac  Newton  has 
instructed  me  in  mathematics  and  astronomy, 
and  Tacitus  and  Motley  have  been  my  teachers 
in  history.  I  am  not  shut  up  to  the  facts  which 
I  can  perceive  and  possess  unaided.  And  again, 
I  am  not  vain  enough  to  think  that  no  being  in 
this  universe  knows  any  more  than  myself. 

However,  within  certain  limits,  I  may  modestly, 
I  must  truthfully,  assert  and  acknowledge  that 
I  am  sure  of  my  own  faculties. 

I  am  sure  that  my  senses  are  trustworthy 
means  of  information  regarding  material  things, 
for  I  have  proved  their  trustworthiness  in  num- 
berless instances.  When  their  testimony  is 
clear,  positive  and  united  I  cannot  doubt  its  cor- 
rectness. Even  the  theorists  who  dispute  that 
testimony,  I  observe,  take  their  fingers  out  of  the 
fire  as  uniformly  as  I  do. 

/  am  sure,  too,  of  my  consciousness  as  a  truth- 
ful revealer  of  my  inner  life,  though  not  of  all 
that  life.  I  know  that  there  is  more  of  my  soul 
than  what  I  am  conscious  of,  but  as  far  as  I  am 
conscious  of  mental  states  they  are  as  real  to  me 
as  the  material  world. 

/  flww.  sure  of  those  vrvtmtive  truths  which  I 
share  with  every  other  human  being,  which  are 
the  foundations  of  all  knowledge  and  a  part  of 
the  very  structure  of  the  mind.     Among  these, 


26  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

and  one  of  the  most  important,  is  the  axiom  that 
"  every  effect  must  have  a  cause  '*  adequate  to 
produce  it.  The  contrary  to  this  is  simply  un- 
thinkable. Sophists  have  cast  doubt  upon  its 
validity,  but  every  one  knows  it,  though  he  can- 
not tell  how  he  knows  it,  and  every  one  acts 
upon  it  continually.  It  is  an  irresistible  intui- 
tion of  the  soul. 

Another  intuition  which  I  am  sure  of  is  the 
distmction  between  right  and  wrong,  and  that  I 
ought  to  do  and  be  the  right  and  not  the  wrong. 
How  I  make  this  distinction  I  do  not  know,  but  I 
do  make  it,  and  that  it  is  a  real  distinction  by 
which  I  ought  to  be  governed  I  do  not  and  can- 
not doubt.  It  is  a  moral  intuition  of  which  I 
am  absolutely  sure,  and  of  which  I  stand  in  awe. 
The  German  philosopher  Kant  said  that  two 
things  filled  him^  with  awe,  the  starry  heavens  and 
the  moral  law.  Both  are  sublime  objects  of 
thought,  but  I  doubt  not  Kant  would  agree  with 
me  in  saying  that,  of  the  two,  the  more  impres- 
sive and  awe-inspiring  fact  is  the  mxyral  law  m 
the  soul. 

Darwin  is  said  to  have  become  uncertain  of 
his  intuitions  through  the  influence  of  his  theory 
of  man's  evolution  from  the  brutes.  This  is  a 
notable    instance    of    the    manner    in    which    a 


THE  FACT  OF  SELF  27 

theorist  confuses  and  bewilders  his  own  percep- 
tions of  the  most  indubitable  truths. 

John  Stuart  MiU,  also,  once  expressed  his 
doubt  whether  two  and  two  might  not  make  five 
in  some  other  world.  The  mind  that  thus  hesi- 
tates to  admit  the  vahdity  of  its  own  funda- 
mental and  necessary  ideas  must  abandon  all 
expectation  of  arriving  at  any  positive  knowl- 
edge. 

/  am  sv/re  that  I  am  a  responsible  being  and, 
as  such,  held  to  give  account  to  conscience  for 
my  obedience  to  its  commands,  and  take  its 
praise  or  blame  for  my  obedience  or  disobedience. 
From  this  responsibility  I  cannot  successfully 
escape,  any  more  than  Pilate  when  he  made  a 
show  of  washing  his  hands  in  water,  by  putting 
the  blame  of  my  bad  action  on  another. 

Neither  does  it  serve  that  purpose  to  throw 
the  blame  back  upon  my  ancestors  as  having 
transmitted  to  me  bad  dispositions,  or  upon  my 
contemporaries  as  having  surroimded  me  with 
corrupting  associations.  However  they  may 
also  be  to  blame,  I  am  sure  that  /  am  to  blame 
for  any  evil  I  have  done  or  been  myself.  All  the 
theorists  cannot  make  me  believe  that  I  am  not 
a  free  agent,  and,  more  than  any  or  all  others, 
the  author  of  my  own  character. 


^8  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

And  /  am  sure  that,  wherever  the  praise  or 
blame  for  my  character  may  lie,  mz^  moral 
character  determines  my  destmy. 

Well-being  and  happiness  are  certainly  pos- 
sible, in  the  long  run,  only  to  the  right  kind  of 
character. 

Degradation  and  misery  are  certain  conse- 
quences of  the  wronug  kind  of  character,  whatever 
or  whoever  may  have  had  a  hand  in  producing 
it. 

When  I  consider  what  my  position  and  pros- 
pects as  a  moral  and  responsible  being  are,  I  am 
quite  sure  that  the  answer  turns,  chiefly,  on  the 
judgment  of  conscience  as  to  what  my  character 
has  been  and  still  is. 

/  am  sure  that  the  determination  of  this  matter 
requires  a  properly  educated  conscience,  and  all 
the  light  thrown  upon  the  subject  which  can 
come  from  any  source. 

/  am  sure  the  Bible  is  the  very  best  source, 
and  having  reflected  upon  its  teachings,  /  ami 
sure  that  I  am  the  sinful  being  it  describes. 

There  is  enough  remorse  in  my  conscience  for 
the  evil  I  have  done,  said,  thought  and  been,  to 
make  me  wretched  as  long  is  I  exist,  unless  in 
some  way  my  conscience  can  be  propitiated  and 
its  accusations  hushed. 

There  is  enough  depravity  in  my  tastes  and 


THE  FACT  OF  SELF  29 

habits  to  balk  any  essential  success  in  my  efforts 
to  be  better,  and,  unless  arrested,  to  corrupt  all 
remnants  of  a  better  nature  still  remaining  in  my 
soul. 

/  (rni  sure  that  I  have  not  the  power,  in  myself, 
either  to  pacify  conscience  or  to  banish  depravity 
from  my  nature,  and  am  therefore  in  a  situation 
very  greatly  to  appreciate  a  gospel  of  salvation 
from  the  guilt  and  power  of  sin. 

In  this  desperate  emergency  I  am  compelled  to 
look  away  from  myself  for  knowledge  and  power 
which  I  do  not  possess. 

Like  a  shipwrecked  sailor  I  scan  the  horizon 
to  find  any  sign  of  one  coming  to  rescue  me. 

Is  there  anything  in  me,  or  about  me,  which 
suggests  the  possibility  of  such  a  gospel  as  I 
need? 

At  the  very  foundation  of  my  intellectual  be- 
ing lies  that  irresistible,  intuitive  conviction  that 
every  effect  must  have  an  adequate  cause,  and 
neither  I  nor  any  other  human  person  can  think 
the  contrary.  It  is  a  truth  that  is  self-evident, 
necessary  and  universal. 

/  am  sure  that  I  am  an  effect  and  must  have 
a  cause. 

I  am  a  complex  and  highly  organized  effect, 
abounding  in  wonderful  contrivances,  remark- 
able adjustments  and  adaptations,  extraordinary 


30  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

combinations,  to  which  only  an  Infinite  Mind 
with  infinite  power  could  have  been  equal. 

I  ami  sure  that  I  perceive  God. 

With  the  Russian  poet  I  say,  "  I  ami,  O  God, 
and  surely  Thoii  must  he!  '* 

Or,  as  that  noble  139th  Psalm  puts  it,  "  I 
will  praise  Thee,  for  I  am  fearfully  and  won- 
derfully made;  marvelous  are  Thy  works,  and 
that  my  soul  knoweth  right  well." 

I  have  not  only  found  God,  but  I  can  teU 
somewhat  as  to  His  character. 

He  must  be  a  holy  being,  or  He  would  not 
have  put  this  conscience  into  my  soul  which  re- 
quires me  to  be  holy  also. 

He  must  be  a  hmd  and  loving  hei/ng,  or  He 
would  not  have  made  me  capable  of  these  feel- 
ings, and  surrounded  me  with  so  much  to  give 
me  pleasure  and  joy. 

/  am  sure  that  there  is  at  least  the  possibUitt/, 
nay,  more,  much  more,  the  proTmse,  in  the 
very  structure  of  my  being,  of  an  almighty 
Friend,  who  is  able  to  do  for  me  all  that  I  need. 

I  am  sure  that  the  reverence  of  which  I  am 
capable  belongs  to  Him,  and  that  admiration 
and  worship  are  the  proper  attitude  of  the  crea- 
ture toward  the  Creator. 

I  involuntarily  turn  toward  Him  with  a  prayer 
for  enlightenment,  help  and  salvation. 


THE  FACT  OF  SELF  31 

I  await  in  hope  a  fuller  revelation  of  Him- 
self to  me,  such  as  I  need  and  such  as  I  am  confi- 
dent He  is  able  to  make. 

In  a  word,  my  sblf -inspection  has  supplied  me 
with  numerous,  momentous,  essential  facts,  for 
which  Christianity  alone,  supplies  the  comple- 
ment. 

/  have  found  that  Christlamty  is  made  for  m^, 
and  that  I  am  made  for  Christianity. 


THE  FACT  OF  A  REVELATION 

Momentous  fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  compared 
with  which  most  other  facts  of  knowledge  sink 
into  insignificance.  The  Christian  rehgion 
claims  to  have  a  revelation  from  God,  in  the 
Bible,  of  all  the  information  desirable  and  neces- 
sary on  the  most  important  religious  questions, 
for  every  member  of  the  human  race.  Is  that 
a  real  revelation,  and  is  it  a  fact  that  a  real 
revelation  has  been  made? 

One  cannot  but  hope  that  it  is.  If  any  one, 
and  even  a  large  number,  should  wish  it  not  to 
be,  and  strive  with  enmity  to  destroy  confidence 
in  an  actual  revelation,  that  would  be  such  a 
manifestation  of  human  depravity  as  to  strongly 
confirm  what  is  said  on  that  subject  in  the 
Bible. 

It  would  be  like  the  joy  of  pirates  who  set 
their  captives  adrift  in  mid-ocean,  without  a 
chart  or  compass,  to  find  their  way  as  best  they 
can  to  some  friendly  harbor.  Or  like  that  of 
savages  who  desert  their  prisoners  in  some  great 
desert  or  primeval  forest,  out  of  which  they 
have  no  means  to  extricate  themselves. 


THE  FACT  OF  REVELATION       33 

For  what  is  desert,  forest  or  ocean  as  an  un- 
known and  pathless  extension,  compared  with 
the  life  we  have  to  live  and  the  death  we  have  to 
die?  And  what  must  be  the  character  of  that 
heart  that  is  willing  to  make  our  human  course 
blinder,  more  confused  and  perplexing  and  more 
dangerous,  less  hopeful  and  happy  than  it  might 
otherwise  be? 

It  is  certainly  a  fact  that  we  need  a  revelation 
of  rehgious  truth. 

It  is  a  fact  that  God  is  the  great  Person  of 
this  universe  "  with  whom  we  have  to  do,"  and 
to  know  his  character,  purposes  and  will  is  more 
important  to  us  than  aU  possible  knowledge  be- 
side. 

It  is  a  fact  that  we  are  all  involved  in  evils 
from  which  we  know  not  how  to  escape,  in 
calamities  from  which  only  God  can  deliver  us; 
but  as  to  whether  he  will  dehver  us  we  are  all 
naturally  ignorant. 

It  is  a  fact  that  aU  the  wisdom  of  this  world, 
independently  of  the  Bible,  has  never  been  able 
to  answer  the  questions  of  the  soul  regarding 
God,  hfe,  death  and  immortality. 

It  is  a  fact  that  no  religion  in  the  world  ex- 
cept the  Christian  possesses  anything  worthy 
to  be  considered  a  revelation. 

The  most  that  can  be  made  of  the  so-called 


34  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

"  sacred  books  "  of  the  heathen,  or  of  the  con- 
clusions of  philosophers,  ancient  or  modem,  is, 
that  they  are  guesses,  though  sometimes  the 
guesses  of  very  able  minds,  at  the  truths  oi  re- 
ligion. They  show  how  little  man  knows,  or 
can  know,  of  himself,  about  the  most  important 
matters  which  concern  him. 

As  for  all  modern  pretensions  to  having  re- 
ceived divine  revelations,  such  as  Swedenborg's, 
the  Mormons',  Spiritism's,  it  is  sufficient  to  say 
that  there  is  nothing  in  these  pretended  revela- 
tions which  is  not  attributable  to  purely  human 
sources,  and  that  they  are  generally  regarded 
as  impositions  upon  particularly  credulous 
minds. 

It  is  a  fact  most  impressive  that  for  any  book 
to  gain  wide  reputation  as  a  divine  book,  as  the 
"  Word  of  God,"  is  well-nigh  impossible. 

Yet  it  is  a  fact,  indisputable,  that  this  reputa- 
tion, to  all  other  books  impossible,  has  been 
achieved  and  numitained  for  thousands  of  years 
by  the  Christiam  Bible.  The  Old  Testament 
enjoyed  that  reputation  before  the  Christian 
era,  and  the  Old  and  New  together  have  held 
that  high  place  for  the  almost  2000  years  since 
that  era  began. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bible  must  possess  the 
very  highest  qualities,  to  have  obtained  and  pre- 


THE  FACT  OF  REVELATION       35 

served  this  reputation  down  to  the  present  time 
and  to  be  venerated  and  loved  as  the  Word  of 
Grod  by  many  millions  of  many  races,  and  es- 
pecially by  those  who  must  be  regarded  as  the 
most  intelligent,  virtuous  and  competent  judges 
of  what  a  divine  book  ought  to  be. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bible  is  the  greatest  liter- 
ary work  in  the  world.  It  stands  in  a  class  by 
itself,  all  others  being  far  below  it. 

It  is  a  fact  that  although  the  Old  Testament 
consists  of  39  books,  by  perhaps  nearly  thirty 
human  authors,  and  the  New  Testament  con- 
sists of  27  books,  by  ten  human  authors,  there 
is  a  unity  of  meaning  and  purpose  and  style 
running  through  all,  which  makes  them  seem  like 
one  book ;  and  it  is  consistent  with  the  idea  that 
the  divine  mind  planned  and  ruled  over  the  com- 
position of  all  the  pfcirts. 

It  ?>  a  fact  strongly  supporting  this  idea  that 
no  book  which  has  ever  been  written,  not  even 
any  which  the  Bible  itself  has  suggested  and  in- 
spired, would  be  for  a  moment  regarded  as 
worthy  to  be  bound  up  with  the  books  of  the 
Bible  as  an  additional  part. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bible  is  the  best  book  in 
the  world.  It  deserves  to  be  called  the  Holy 
Bible.  Its  elevating,  and  ennobling  influence 
upon  individuals  and  nations  and  races  is  a  fact. 


36  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

the  evidence  of  which  is  abundant  and  familiar. 
To  introduce  the  Bible  into  human  society,  even 
in  that  society's  lowest  and  most  degraded  con- 
ditions, is  to  raise  it  rapidly  towards  the  high- 
est known  standards,  even  the  standards  of  the 
Bible  itself,  than  which  there  is  nothing  higher. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bible  is  a  book  for  all 
tvme,  having  in  it  that  which  has  interested,  in- 
structed, comforted  and  elevated  all  past  ages ; 
and  so  far  from  being  exhausted  is  it  at  the  pres- 
ent time  that  it  is  more  read,  studied,  discussed, 
objected  to  by  enemies,  and  loved,  defended,  and 
extolled  by  its  friends,  than  ever  before.  There 
is  not  the  slightest  probability  that  it  will  not 
continue  to  be  the  greatest  book  in  the  world  as 
long  6is  the  human  race  shall  last. 

It  is  a  fact  that  while,  like  Nature,  the  Bible 
contains  many  things  the  purpose  and  value  of 
which  have  never  yet  been  clearly  perceived,  it 
also,  like  Nature,  contains  many  things  so  great, 
noble  and  excellent  for  us  that  they  can  be  at- 
tributed only  to  their  divine  Author.  For  ex- 
ample, the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  the  portrait  of  Jesus,  are  so  far 
above  all  human  inventions  that  they  must  be 
considered  divine. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Bible  contains  predictions 
of  future  events,  the  fulfillment  of  which  proves 


THE  FACT  OF  REVELATION       57 

them  to  have  been  made  by  divine  knowledge. 
Thus  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  which  was 
certainly  written  centuries  before  the  coming  of 
Christ,  is  such  a  vivid  and  detailed  description 
of  the  closing  events  of  his  life  as  must  have  is- 
sued from  a  mind  to  which  the  future  is  as  evi- 
dent as  the  past. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  conception  of  Salvation 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  Scriptures,  as  that  of  a 
fallen  and  lost  race  beyond  all  possibility  of 
self-deHverance,  to  be  rescued  by  God  through 
Incarnation,  Atonement,  Regeneration,  Justifi- 
cation, Sanctification  and  Resurrection,  is  so  for- 
eign to  human  thought  and  so  impossible  of  hu- 
man invention  that  it  can  have  come  to  us  only 
from  God  himself. 

That  this  wonderful  plan,  which  could  have 
originated  only  with  God,  and  which,  in  all  its 
parts,  God  alone  could  execute,  is  the  great  sub- 
ject of  the  Bible  and  may  be  found  everywhere 
in  it,  makes  the  book  eminently  worthy  to  be  a 
divine  book,  and  separates  it  immeasurably  from 
all  other  so-called  "  sacred  books." 

It  is  a  fact  that  all  attempts,  of  which  there 
have  been  many,  to  discredit  the  Bible  have 
proved  futile  up  to  this  time.  It  is  an  anvil 
which  has  worn  out  many  hammers.  If  we  may 
judge  the  future  by  the  past,  the  Bible  will  tri- 


d8  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

umph  over  all  assaults  which  shall  or  can  be 
made  upon  it. 

It  is  a  fact  that  no  individual,  race  or  nation 
has  anything  to  gain  by  destroying  faith  in  the 
Bible,  but  everything  to  lose.  Peace  of  mind, 
comfort  in  sorrow,  strength  against  temptation, 
kindness  and  justice  between  man  and  man,  hope 
in  death,  are  all  promoted  and  kept  alive  by  such 
faith,  and  are  all  in  danger  of  perishing  by  its 
destruction.  For  the  world  to  lose  its  Bible 
would  be,  apparently,  to  have  the  dark  night  of 
atheism  and  anarchy  settle  down  upon  mankind. 
From  that  conclusion  shall  not  every  one  of  us 
pray,  "  Good  Lord,  dehver  us !  " 


VI 

THE  FACT  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  now  nearly  2000  years 
Jesus  Christ  has  been  the  most  important  re- 
ligious figure  of  the  world's  knowledge. 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  all  that  time  he  has  been 
regarded  as  the  world's  greatest  religious  teacher 
and  the  world's  greatest  man. 

It  is  a  fact  that  he  has  been  worshipped  as 
God  and  trusted  in  as  Saviour  by  a  constantly 
increasing  number,  of  many  nations  and  races, 
and  that  there  were  never  so  many  who  wor- 
shipped and  trusted  in  him  as  now. 

It  is  a  fact  that  those  who  so  regard  him  are 
not  the  savage,  ignorant,  superstitious  and  least 
enlightened  peoples,  but  those  whose  conceptions 
of  God  are  the  highest  which  men  have  ever  en- 
tertained, even  those  found  in  the  Bible,  of  an 
infinite,  eternal,  aU-wise,  almighty,  just,  holy 
and  loving  being. 

It  is  a  fact  that  this  beautiful  and  sublime 
conception  is  itself,  largely,  the  result  of  the 
study  of  the  character  of  Christ  himself,  as  set 
forth  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  that,  for  God 
to  be  as  great  and  good  as  Jesus  Christ,  is  an 
S9 


40  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

idea  which  satisfies  our  minds,  hearts  and  con- 
sciences, and  meets  our  greatest  needs  and  lofti- 
est aspirations. 

It  is  a  fact  that  we  get  our  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ  not  from  any  mere  human  biog- 
raphy or  history,  but  from  that  greatest  and 
best  book  in  the  world,  which  contains  so  much 
which  could  not  have  come  from  purely  human 
sources,  and  is  so  far  above  all  other  literature 
that  we  are  compelled  to  regard  God  as  its  only 
sufficient  Author. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  four  Gospels  from  which, 
principally,  we  derive  our  knowledge,  while  con- 
taining independent  and  peculiar  accounts  of 
this  great  Person,  yet  so  wonderfully  agree  in 
their  harmonious  portraiture  of  his  unique  char- 
acter, as  is  possible  only  from  actual  and  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  him,  supplemented  and 
completed  by  a  divine  influence  which  left  noth- 
ing lacking  in  their  representations  or  needing 
correction. 

It  is  a  fact  that  it  is  now  known  that  the 
epistles  of  Paul  were  written,  and  in  circulation, 
within  only  tmenty-five  years  of  the  death  of 
Christ;  that  these  letters  contain  the  essential 
facts  of  his  history,  which  was  therefore  soon 
and  widely  known,  as  important  and  real  facts 
are  likely  to  be. 


THE  FACT  OF  JESUS  CHRIST       41 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  personal  claims  of  Jesus, 
recorded  in  the  Gospels,  to  equality  with  the 
Father  as  the  Son  of  God,  are  so  clear  and  posi- 
tive that  the  worship  of  Him  as  divine  must  be 
considered  to  have  been  desired  and  intended  by 
Him. 

It  is  a  fact  that  His  life  and  death  were  in 
the  highest  degree  worthy  of  a  God  who  should 
become  man  for  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

It  is  a  fact  that  many  things  which  Jesus  said 
about  himself,  and  which  would  surprise  and  dis- 
gust us  if  said  by  any  other,  seem  entirely  fitting 
and  proper,  because  so  completely  in  harmony 
with  his  exalted  character. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  discourses,  parables, 
promises,  exhortations  and  denunciations  by 
Jesus,  recorded  in  the  gospels,  are  of  a  quality 
such  as  we  should  expect  from  a  divine-human 
person.  No  human  literary  genius  ever  com- 
posed a  prayer  appropriate  to  such  a  person, 
but  the  17th  chapter  of  John  contains  such  a 
prayer.  To  suppose  that  John  invented  it  is 
to  rate  him  far  above  the  most  stupendous  liter- 
ary genius  the  world  has  ever  known.  His  task 
was  far  easier:  he  had  only  to  record  what  he 
must  have  heard  Jesus  say. 

It  is  a  fact  that,  in  the  judgment  of  those  who 
are  the  most  scrupulous  regarding  right  and 


42  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

wrong,  Jesus  is  entirely  without  faults.  Many 
who  hesitate  to  pronounce  as  to  his  divine  na- 
ture yet  grant,  and  insist  upon,  his  sinlessness. 
And  he,  though  the  keenest  discemer  and  great- 
est teacher  of  moral  distinctions,  had  no  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  and  never  asked  for  for- 
giveness. He  is  the  one  person  of  the  human 
race  of  whom  such  perfection  can  be  believed. 

It  is  a  fact  that  this  moral  perfection  is  not 
less  wonderful  than  any  of  the  miracles  attri- 
buted to  Jesus,  and  is  itself  a  miracle  which  pro- 
claims him  all  that  he  has  been  thought  to  be. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  miracles  which  he  is  said 
to  have  performed,  and  the  supernatural  manner 
of  his  coming  and  his  going,  are  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  his  claims  and  character  as  the  Son 
of  God,  and  exactly  what  we  ought  to  expect  if 
God  should  become  incarnate. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  perception  of  his  divinity 
by  his  apostles  was  the  very  rock  on  which  he 
meant  to  build  his  church,  and  that  up  to  the 
present  time  his  prediction  that  the  gates  of 
Hades  should  not  prevail  against  it  has  been  ful- 
filled. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  all  situations  in  which 
Jesus  is  described,  and  in  all  his  relations  to  per- 
sons and  classes,  the  propriety,  dignity  and 
beauty  of  his  behavior  never  falls  short  of  what 


THE  FACT  OF  JESUS  CHRIST       43 

we  might  expect  of  "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  pathos,  moral  beauty  and 
majesty  of  Christ's  death,  and  the  solemn  and 
profound  impression  made  by  it,  are  all  in  en- 
tire harmony  with  its  significance  as  a  voluntary 
sacrifice  for  human  sin,  and  that  the  general 
judgment  endorses  the  famous  saying  of  the 
French  infidel,  Rousseau,  "  Jesus  Christ  died 
like  a  god." 

It  is  a  fact  that  God  himself  could  do  nothing 
more  or  better  than  to  sacrifice  Himself  to  atone 
for  the  sins  of  His  guilty  creatures,  and  that 
to  deny  that  He  did  this,  in  the  person  of  Jesus, 
is  to  rob  Him  of  his  greatest  glory,  and  to  make 
Him  less  than  Jesus  himself. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ  is 
so  well  attested  that  we  can  be  surer  of  nothing 
than  of  that.  So  much  has  happened  which 
could  not  otherwise  have  happened,  that  it  must 
have  occurred. 

It  is  a  fact  that  prophecy  and  history,  the 
past,  present  and  the  future,  have  their  only 
explanation,  and  indeed  their  only  possibihty, 
in  the  fact  of  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  a  fact  that  as  Christ's  birth  is  the  cen- 
tral point  of  all  history,  all  events  being  dated 
according  to  their  occurrence  either  before  or 
since  that  birth,  so  it  was  the  crisis  and  turning 


44i  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

point  of  the  world's  history,  when,  from  having 
sunk  to  the  lowest  depths  of  degredation  and 
misery,  mankind  began  to  rise  socially,  morally 
and  religiously. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  only  intelligible  concep- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  human  existence,  the  pur- 
pose for  which  man  is  designed,  and  the  plan  by 
which  that  purpose  is  to  be  effected,  are  fur- 
nished by  Jesus  Christ,  and  by  him  alone. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  only  substantial  founda- 
tion of  which  man  has  ever  heard  for  a  reason- 
able hope  of  becoming  ultimately  perfect  and 
eternally  happy,  is  that  supplied  by  the  promises 
and  power  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  only  Gospel  which  has 
ever  proved  effectual  in  producing  true  repent- 
ance for  sin  and  turning  the  heart  toward  God 
in  loving  trust  and  submission  is  the  gospel  of 
a  Crucified  Saviour,  whose  loving  self-sacrifice 
is  the  expression,  at  once,  of  divine  justice  and 
divine  love,  and  the  highest  proof  man  can  have 
of  his  own  essential  dignity  and  worth. 


VII 

THE  FACT'  OF  THE  CHURCH 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  greatest  and  most  power- 
ful religious  institution  which  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  having  for  its  object  the  betterment 
of  the  race  and  the  salvation  of  the  soul,  is  the 
Christian  Church. 

It  is  a  fact  that  it  sprang  into  existence  in  a 
single  day,  only  fifty  days  after  the  crucifixion 
of  Christ,  and  in  the  very  city  where  he  had  been 
crucified,  and  at  the  close  of  that  day  numbered 
more  than  three  thousand  persons. 

It  is  a  fact  that  on  that  very  day  it  was  sub- 
stantially the  same  that  it  is  now ;  with  the  same 
conditions  of  membership,  the  same  doctrines, 
principles,  methods,  aims  and  hopes  which  have 
characterized  it  from  that  time  to  this. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus  had 
been  plunged  into  such  dejection  and  apathy, 
by  the  apparently  horrible  and  hopeless  calamity 
of  his  shameful  death,  that  nothing  less  than  his 
resurrection  can  account  for  the  wonderful  vigor 
and  confidence  with  which  the  Church  began. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  wonderful  descent  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  with  aU  its  attendant  miracles,  in 
4^ 


46  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

the  very  manner  described  in  the  second  chapter 
of  Acts,  must  be  added  to  the  Resurrection  in 
order  to  furnish  an  adequate  cause  for  the  sud- 
den birth  of  the  Church  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost. 

It  is  a  fact  that  from  this  time  onwards  the 
apostles  and  early  disciples  evinced  no  slightest 
doubt  or  hesitation,  and  were  ready,  if  need  be, 
to  seal  their  testimony  with  their  blood. 

It  is  a  fact  that  mthi/n  the  first  year  the  gos- 
pel was  carried,  and  the  Church  extended, 
through  all  parts  of  Palestine  and  into  neigh- 
boring regions;  that  the  Church  at  Jerusalem 
had  grown  to  10,000  or  more;  and  that  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  the  greatest  mind  of  that  or  any  suc- 
ceeding age  with  the  single  exception  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  at  first  the  bitterest  and  cruelest 
enemy  of  Christianity,  had  been  converted  and 
had  become  its  most  ardent  friend  and  its  great- 
est apostle.^ 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  subsequent  triumphs  of 
the  Christian  religion  over  the  inveterate  hos- 
tility of  Judaism  and  the  apparently  overwhelm- 
ing power  of  Paganism  can  be  explained  only 
by  its  inherent  excellence  and  by  the  super- 
natural co-operation  of  God. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  survival  of  the  Church 

1  Dr.  Behrends'  Yale  Address.    See  Bible  Student  and 
Teacher,  April,  1909,  p.  241. 


THE  FACT  OF  THE  CHURCH        47 

through  the  Dark  Ages,  and  during  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  all  the  centuries  since  its  origin,  until 
at  the  present  time  its  magnitude  and  influence 
are  greater  than  ever  before,  is  a  manifestation 
of  providential  care  and  control,  than  which 
there  could  be  none  more  convincing. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  doctrines  of  Christianity 
are  so  opposed  to  the  natural  conceptions  of 
mankind,  its  motives  are  so  contrary  to  human 
inclination,  and  the  life  it  proposes  and  insists 
upon  so  distasteful  to  human  nature,  that  noth- 
ing less  than  a  new  spiritual  birth,  as  the  regen- 
erating work  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  can  account 
for  either  the  beginning  of  the  Church  or  its 
continuance  from  generation  to  generation. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  corruptions  of  the  Church 
at  various  times  and  in  many  countries,  the  de- 
cline of  its  piety,  the  perversion  of  its  doctrines, 
the  hypocrisy  and  priestcraft  of  those  who  have 
acted  in  its  name,  only  render  more  wonderful 
the  fact  of  its  continued  existence  and  the  degree 
of  the  purity  which  it  has  been  able  to  maintain. 
Its  greatest  enemies  have  been  its  false  friends; 
its  worst  foes  have  not  been  without  but  within ; 
a  false  church  has  been  the  most  formidable  rival 
of  the  true  church;  and  the  infidels  from  whom 
it  has  had  most  to  fear  are  the  infidels  who  have 
masked  as  Christian  preachers  and  teachers  in 


48  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

its  pulpits  and  press  and  schools.  All  these  se- 
cret foes  it  has  had  in  addition  to  all  the  avowed 
enmity  of  all  the  powers  of  worldly  evil,  and  yet 
it  lives  on,  undestroyed  and  indestructible. 
This  is  the  great  fact  of  history,  which  Bunyan 
represented  by  a  fire  on  which  water  was  continu- 
ally thrown  to  extinguish  it,  but  which  was  kept 
ahve  by  oil  secretly  poured  on  from  behind. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  ordinances  of  Baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper,  the  observance  of  which  can 
be  traced  through  nineteen  centuries  to  the  very 
beginning  of  the  Christian  Era,  are  a  historical 
monument  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  Christian- 
ity, which  cannot  be  successfully  overthrown. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Christianity  was  the  ark  in 
which  the  treasures  of  learning,  civilization  and 
true  rehgion  were  borne  to  us  through  that 
flood  of  ignorance,  superstition  and  barbarism 
which  prevailed  in  so  many  countries  during 
many  centuries  of  our  era. 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Bible  in  the  world,  the  maintenance  of  spiritual 
worship,  the  success  of  great  moral  reforms, 
and  the  practice  and  spread  of  humaneness,  we 
are  now,  as  we  have  always  been,  dependent 
chiefly  upon  the  Church  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  great  missionary  organi- 


THE  FACT  OF  THE  CHURCH        49 

zations  of  the  Church,  which  have  been  endeavor- 
ing for  a  hundred  years  to  evangelize  the  nations 
of  the  earth,  and  yvhich  are  continually  en- 
larging their  operations  upon  a  more  and  more 
prodigious  scale,  have  done  and  are  doing  more 
than  all  other  agencies  for  the  progress  of  the 
human  race.  The  philanthropy,  the  unselfish- 
ness and  the  heroism  of  Missions  are  a  continu- 
ally recurring  demonstration  that  Christianity 
is  from  God. 

It  is  a  fact  that  at  the  present  time,  after  all 
the  experiments  of  thousands  of  years,  by  all  the 
races,  nations,  governments,  philosophies,  sci- 
ences, arts  and  organizations,  to  raise  the  world 
to  a  higher  level,  there  is  nothing  in  sight  which 
gives  such  brilliant  promise  of  success  as  the 
Christian  Church.  Its  wonderful  achievements 
in  the  past,  its  world-wide  enterprise  and  ag- 
gressiveness at  the  present,  and  its  evidence  of 
alliance  with  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe  and  the 
Savior  of  men,  give  it  a  prestige  which  can  be 
found  nowhere  else,  and  afford  the  happiest 
augury  of  its  future  complete  triumph.  The 
fortunes  of  mankind  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  they  are  in  no  other 
keeping  whatsoever. 


vni 

THE    FACT    OF    CHRISTIAN    EXPERI- 
ENCE 

It  is  a  fact  that  a  peculiar,  unique  and  blessed 
experience  is  common  to  all  who  truly  believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  really  accept  him 
as  their  Lord  and  Savior. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  these  persons  the  mind  is 
so  illuminated,  and  the  understanding  so  quick- 
ened and  clarified,  as  to  enable  them  to  perceive 
the  facts  of  self  and  of  God,  and  the  truths  of 
Revelation,  with  a  clearness  and  certainty  which 
produce  the  greatest  possible  assurance  of  their 
trustworthiness. 

It  is  a  fact  that  there  is  a  change  of  disposi- 
tion and  of  tastes  in  such  persons  which  amounts 
to  a  revolution,  and  that  they  love  what  they 
formerly  were  indifferent  to  or  hated,  and  hate 
what  they  formerly  tolerated  or  loved. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  these  persons  the  will  is 
now  exercised  to  make  entirely  opposite  choices 
to  those  which  it  formerly  made,  and  that  the 
motives  which  it  allows  to  influence  it  are  mo- 
tives which  formerly  had  for  it  no  power. 
60 


THE  FACT  OF  EXPERIENCE        61 

It  is  a  fact  that  to  those  who  experience  this 
change  of  mind,  heart  and  will,  the  worship  of 
the  God  revealed  in  the  Bible  ceases  to  be  a  dis- 
tasteful and  mechanical  performance  of  duty, 
and  becomes  a  delightful  contemplation  and 
adoration  of  the  Being  most  honored  and  loved. 

It  is  a  fact  that  at  the  same  time,  and  by  the 
same  means,  the  fellow  men  of  the  convert  to 
Christianity  are  no  longer  regarded  with  in- 
diiFerence,  aversion  or  hate,  but  with  a  truly  un- 
selfish affection  and  a  desire  to  contribute  to 
their  happiness  and  ensure  their  salvation. 

It  is  a  fact  that  while  these  feelings  are  ex- 
ercised toward  all  men  without  distinction  of 
race,  color  or  nation,  the  Christian  feels  a  pe- 
culiarly strong  and  tender  affection  for  other 
Christians,  such  as  is  fitting  toward  the  spiritual 
children  of  a  common  heavenly  Father. 

It  is  a  fact  that  these  peculiar  experiences  and 
this  remarkable  revolution  of  character  may  be 
often,  and  even  quite  generally,  traced  to  re- 
flection upon  some  passage  or  passages  of  the 
Bible  which  have  served,  like  spiritual  seed,  to 
cause  the  uprising  of  a  new  spiritual  life. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  fostering  of  this  new 
spiritual  hf  e,  and  the  cultivation  of  it  to  higher 
grades  of  excellence,  is  the  result  of  continued 


62  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

acquaintance  with  the  Bible,  with  confidence  in 
its  truth,  acceptance  of  its  teachings  and  sub- 
mission to  its  guidance. 

It  is  a  fact  that  this  unique  Christian  experi- 
ence is  exactly  what  the  Bible  promises  and  de- 
scribes, and  attributes  to  the  supernatural 
agency  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  conviction  of  sin  and  the 
assurance  of  forgiveness  are  often,  and  most 
frequently,  the  results  of  the  contemplation  of 
the  death  of  Christ,  as  described  in  the  Gospels, 
and  faith  that,  by  that  death,  atonement  was 
made  to  the  divine  justice,  and  pardon  to  guilty 
but  penitent  sinners  rendered  possible. 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  these  reasons,  and  the 
recognized  inseparable  and  causal  connection  of 
the  Bible  with  this  precious  Christian  experience, 
it  becomes  to  the  Christian  the  Book  of  books, 
and  proves  its  divine  authorship  beyond  doubt 
or  question. 

It  is  a  fact  that  because,  in  the  Church,  the 
Christian  finds  associates  who  share  and  confirm 
his  own  blessed  experience  and  stimulate  him  to 
cherish  and  increase  it,  supplying,  at  the  same 
time,  the  means  of  grace  by  which  such  increase 
is  furthered,  his  love  for  the  Church  and  his 
confidence  that,   like   the   Bible,   it   is   divinely 


THE  FACT  OF  EXPERIENCE        63 

originated  and  continued,  become  fixed  and  in- 
destructible. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Prayer,  in  the  truest  sense, 
begins  and  is  maintained  as  an  indispensable  part 
of  the  Christian  life;  and  that  the  longer  it  is 
continued,  and  the  firmer  the  habit  becomes,  the 
stronger  is  the  conviction  that  God  really  meets 
and  answers  the  praying  spirit. 

It  is  a  fact  that  by  this  Christian  experience 
life  is  ennobled,  sweetened  and  made  in  every  way 
worthier.  It  is  directed  to  superior  aims,  occu- 
pied with  higher  thoughts,  made  stronger 
against  temptation,  more  patient  in  trials,  more 
resolute  against  difficulties,  more  enduring  un- 
der adversity.  In  the  humblest  as  well  as  the 
highest  vocation,  life  becomes  worth  the  living. 
The  joys  of  Christian  experience  make  all  other 
joys  seem  small  and  inconsiderable. 

It  is  a  fact  of  Christian  experience  that  death 
itself  is  robbed  of  its  terrors,  and  changed  from 
the  greatest  of  misfortunes  into  the  greatest  of 
blessings.  The  dying  Christian  is  often  so  con- 
scious of  supernatural  grace  supporting  his 
weakness,  removing  his  fears,  and  brightening 
his  future,  that  the  hour  of  his  departure  be- 
comes to  him  an  hour  of  triumphant  entry  into 
celestial  gates.     Innumerable  instances  of  such 


64  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

departures  confirm  the  conviction  that  the  Lord 
Jesus  always  fulfills  his  promise  to  come  again 
and  receive  his  disciples  unto  himself. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  world  owes  to  Christian 
experience  its  greatest  advantages  and  blessings, 
since  it  has  been  those  who  have  possessed  it  who 
have  been  the  world's  greatest  benefactors.  As 
ministers,  missionaries,  philanthropists,  states- 
men and  doers  of  good  works  generally,  they 
have  taken  the  leading  part  in  the  promotion  of 
education,  religion,  freedom  and  civilization. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  reality,  power  and  value  of 
this  experience  are  attested  by  too  many  wit- 
nesses and  proved  by  too  many  evidences,  to  be 
reasonably  disputed.  The  searcher  after  re- 
ligious truth  must  give  it  a  large  place  in  his 
investigations,  if  he  wishes  to  be  truly  scientific. 
That  there  are  many  who  have  never  had  this 
experience  cannot  be  urged  against  it,  unless 
it  can  be  shown  that  they  have  supplied  all  con- 
ditions on  which  it  is  promised.  Nor  can  the  un- 
worthy and  injurious  results  of  a  corrupted  and 
paganized  Christianity  be  used  to  depreciate  and 
disparage  the  experience  of  the  actual  followers 
of  Jesus  Christ.  For  themi,  all  that  has  been 
claimed  must  be  admitted  in  all  its  reality  and 
power. 


IX 

THE  FACT  OF  NATURE 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  natural  universe,  including 
the  human  race,  is  a  revelation  of  God,  with 
which  all  other  revelations  must  necessarily  har- 
monize. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  descriptions  of  Nature  in 
the  Bible  are  the  most  beautiful,  sublime  and 
affecting  to  be  found  in  all  literature. 

It  is  a  fact  that  no  conflict  between  the  Bible 
and  Science  has  ever  been  proved,  although  many 
attempts  to  prove  such  a  conflict  have  been  made. 

It  IS  a  fact  that  each  of  several  so-called  sci- 
ences, at  its  first  appearance,  has  been  supposed 
by  some  to  be  capable  of  being  used  to  convict 
the  Bible  of  error;  but  each  in  its  turn,  as  its 
facts  came  to  be  more  fully  and  correctly  ap- 
prehended, became  a  witness  for  the  truth  of  the 
Sacred  Scriptures. 

It  is  a  fact  that  some  of  the  truths  of  the 
natural  sciences,  which  have  only  recently  been 
discovered  through  investigation,  were  antici- 
pated by  the  T\Titers  of  the  books  of  the  Bible, 
showing  that  they  were  inspired  by  Him  who 
knew  all  things  from  the  beginning. 
65 


66  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

It  is  a  fact  that  these  writers  were  wonderfully 
preserved  from  incorporating  in  their  works  the 
false  ideas  of  Nature  which  were  current  in  their 
times,  so  that  the  Bible  contrasts  so  completely 
with  other  so-called  sacred  books  as  to  show 
that  it  alone  came  from  God. 

It  is  a  fact  that  statements  of  the  Bible  re- 
lating to  Natural  History,  which  scientists  have 
for  a  long  time  confidently  disputed,  have  re- 
cently been  proved  true,  showing  that  the  charge 
of  error  was  based,  not  upon  knowledge,  but 
upon  ignorance. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Christian  conception  of 
God  is  based  upon  the  revelation  of  Him  in  Na- 
ture, and  includes  and  harmonizes  with  all  that 
we  know  of  Him  from  his  natural  works. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Christian  conception  of 
man  is  the  only  one  which  makes  an  adequate  ac- 
count of  his  actualities  and  his  possibilities,  of 
his  worst  and  his  best,  of  what  he  is  and  what  he 
may  be. 

It  is  a  fact  that  human  nature  is  fallen  and  de- 
praved, with  a  tendency  to  gravitate  toward 
lower  depths  of  sin  and  guilt,  and  that  in  spite 
of  remnants  of  a  better  nature  and  recurrent  im- 
pulses to  retrieve  itself,  it  has  no  power  to  lift 
itself  to  a  permanently  higher  level  and  achieve 
a  thoroughly  faultless  character. 


THE  FACT  OF  NATURE  67 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  most  intelh'gible  idea  of 
the  plan  and  purpose  of  the  natural  world,  an 
idea  consistent  with,  all  the  facts,  is  that  it  is 
the  appropriate  home  of  a  smfvl  race,  whom 
God  would  reform,  educate  and  save.  As  such 
it  is  fitted  up,  not  with  the  ideal  appointments 
which  a  holy  race  would  deserve  and  enjoy,  but 
with  the  furniture  which  sinners,  not  incapable 
of  salvation,  need  and  may  be  benefited  by. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  human  race  are  undergo- 
ing a  moral  and  evangelical  probation,  the  re- 
sult of  which  appears  to  be  the  settlement  of 
their  final  destiny. 

It  is  a  fact  that  for  this  purpose  God  has  re- 
vealed himself  to  man  in  many  ways,  that  better 
acquaintance  with  our  Maker  may  incline  us  to 
repentance,  reconciliation  and  entire  concord. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Nature  holds  a  mirror  up  to 
Man  in  which  he  sees  the  reflection  of  his  own 
vices  in  the  lower  races  of  wild  and  noxious  ani- 
mals with  which  he  has  to  share  his  dwelling 
place,  so  that  he  recognizes  the  phases  of  de- 
praved human  character  as  similar  to  the  nature 
of  bears,  foxes,  snakes,  wolves  and  other  dreaded 
wild  beasts. 

It  is  a  fact,  too,  that  the  great  Teacher,  Jesus, 
used  many  natural  objects  as  symbols  of  spirit- 
ual facts,  thereby  indicating  that  the  primary 


68  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

purpose  of  these  objects  was  the  religious  edu- 
cation and  salvation  of  men. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Jesus  made  use  of  Nature  to 
show  himself  to  be  the  incarnate  God,  and  by 
such  miracles  as  the  multiplication  of  the  loaves 
and  fishes,  the  healing  of  incurable  diseases,  the 
stilling  of  the  tempest,  and  the  raising  of  the 
dead  to  life,  proved  himself  to  be  the  Creator 
and  Ruler  of  the  Universe  and  the  sufficient 
Saviour  of  his  people. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  human  conscience,  by  its 
recognition  of  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  and  the  approval  it  renders  for  right  and 
the  remorse  it  inflicts  for  wrong,  reveals  the 
character  and  judgment  of  its  Maker  and  his 
moral  government  over  mankind. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  addition  to  conscience, 
there  is  a  system  of  rewards  and  punishments 
under  God's  moral  government,  according  to 
which  the  greatest  benefits  follow  welldoing  and 
the  greatest  penalties  follow  evildoing. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  disposition  to  forgive  of- 
fences, when  the  offenders  appear  truly  penitent, 
is  a  characteristic  of  the  noblest  natures,  and 
may  therefore  be  expected  of  God. 

It  is  a  fact  that,  under  all  forms  of  human 
government,  the  disposition  to  pardon  has  to 
be  exercised  with  great  caution,  lest  the  escape 


The  fact  of  nature        5d 

of  the  pardoned  from  just  punishment  encourage 
evildoers  to  expect  to  be  able  to  break  law  with 
impunity. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  all  true  sorrow  for  sin  there 
is  a  desire  to  atone  in  some  way  for  the  evil  done, 
that  law  may  be  honored  and  the  injury  to  others 
repaired. 

It  is  a  fact  that  those  who  honestly  endeavor 
to  attain  a  high  degree  of  moral  excellence 
realize  keenly  the  depravity  of  their  own  natures 
and  the  need  of  a  change  of  heart,  such  as  Jesus 
said  must  take  place  before  entrance  into  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven. 

It  is  a  fact  that  in  the  natural  world  every 
kingdom  has  the  power  to  lift  the  kingdom  be- 
low it  to  its  own  level,  although  no  kingdom  has 
the  power  to  rise  above  itself.  Thus  the  vegeta- 
ble kingdom  takes  the  mineral  kingdom  and 
makes  it  a  part  of  its  own  life,  and  the  animal 
kingdom  does  the  same  for  the  vegetable  king- 
dom. Unnumbered  insects  deposit  their  eggs 
in  the  stems  or  leaves  of  plants,  whereupon  the 
plant  abandons  its  normal  course  and  builds  a 
wonderful  dwelling  for  its  tenents.  In  like  man- 
ner, man  lifts  all  kingdoms  below  him  to  other 
and  higher  uses  than  they  would  serve  of  them- 
selves. So  that  being  "  bom  from  above  "  is  a 
general  law  of  Nature,  as  well  as  the  method  of 


60  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

salvation  by  which  the  Holy  Spirit  does  for  a  de- 
praved sinner  what  he  could  not  do  for  himself. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  remarkable  influence  which 
some  men  exert  upon  others,  by  which  character 
is  changed  and  careers  are  revolutionized,  affords 
strong  corroboration  of  the  doctrine  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God  is  able  to  exert  an  influence 
over  the  mind  and  heart,  which  is  a  virtual  re- 
creation and  makes  the  person  a  new  creature  in 
Christ  Jesus. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Fatherly  love  of  God  for 
his  human  off^spring,  which  Jesus  so  beautifully 
taught,  is  testified  to  by  numberless  adjustments 
of  Nature  and  natural  processes,  which  tend  to 
give  pleasure,  gratification,  comfort,  health 
and  happiness ;  while  even  pain,  sickness,  sorrow 
and  death  are  often  seen  to  work  out  beneficent 
results,  which  show  kindness  and  good  will  to  be 
the  characteristics  of  the  Creator. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  Hberty  of  choice  to  which 
the  Gospel  addresses  itself,  the  abuse  of  which  is 
the  source  of  all  moral  evil,  is  the  indispensable 
condition  of  all  really  virtuous  character  and  of 
all  perfect:  happiness;  it  was,  therefore,  the 
crowning  gift  with  which  God  originally  en- 
dowed human  nature. 

It  is  a  fa£t  that  that  self-sacrifice  of  which 
even  fallen  human  nature  is  capable,  which  is 


THE  FACT  OF  NATURE  61 

continually  demanded  in  every  relation  in  life 
and  which  is  cheerfully  rendered  by  heroic  souls, 
would  lead  us  to  expect  that  the  God  who  made, 
loves  and  pities  this  lost  race,  would  sacrifice 
himself  for  our  salvation,  in  the  very  manner  de- 
scribed in  the  gospels. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  self-sacrifice  of  another 
for  its  sake  is  the  most  powerful  means  of  ajffect- 
ing  a  base  mind,  inducing  a  desire  for  reform 
and  a  purpose  to  be  better ;  so  that  the  death  of 
Christ  for  us  sinners  is  entirely  in  accord  with 
all  that  we  can  understand  of  the  philosophy  of 
salvation. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  desire  for  a  future  Uf e, 
and  the  general  expectation  of  such  a  life,  which 
have  prevailed  in  all  lands  and  ages,  are  exactly 
what  we  should  expect  in  view  of  the  fuller  reve- 
lation of  hfe  and  immortality  made  by  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
in  a  form  at  once  identical  with  the  old,  but  new 
and  far  more  glorious,  is  typified  by  Nature  in 
many  ways  and  numberless  instances.  The  res- 
urrection of  the  grain  of  wheat  in  the  new  body 
which  God  gives  it,  which,  though  so  different 
and  so  much  greater  and  more  beautiful,  is  yet 
identical  with  the  seed  sown,  is  Paul's  chosen 
illustration,   in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  First 


62  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

Corinthians.  The  butterfly,  which  reaches  its 
gorgeous  cUmax  by  passing  from  the  caterpillar 
through  the  crysalis,  is  only  the  most  splendid 
representative  of  the  whole  insect  world,  which 
seems  designed  to  teach  the  Resurrection. 


DISPUTED  FACTS  NOW  PROVED 

That  Moses  wrote  the  books  attributed  to  him 
has  been,  and  still  is,  widely  denied,  on  the 
ground  that  the  art  of  writing  was  unknown  as 
earij  as  1500  B.  C.  But  whole  libraries  of  a 
far  earlier  date  have  been  unearthed  in  Assyria 
and  Egypt,  containing  works  on  grammar, 
geography,  natural  history,  theology,  astrology 
and  history.  The  age  of  Abraham,  who  lived 
at  least  five  hundred  years  before,  was  an  age  of 
culture.  At  Tel-el-Amama,  in  Egypt,  tablets 
have  been  found  containing  business  records,  and 
letters  from  the  high  officials  of  Palestine,  dis- 
closing the  very  state  of  affairs  described  by  the 
book  of  Joshua.^ 

The  fact  that  light  was  created,  before  the  sum, 
as  stated  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  was  long 
ridiculed,  but  is  now  generally  admitted  by  men 
of  science. 

That  vegetation  appeared  before  animal  life 
was  also  stoutly  denied,  but  is  now  abundantly 

1  Prof.  Sayce,  "  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monu- 
ments," p.  51. 

63 


64  THE  FACTS  OP  FAITH 

proved  by  the  beds  of  graphite,  which  consist 
of  vegetable  remains. 

The  order  of  events  given  by  the  creation- 
chapter  has  long  been  fiercely  contested,  but  it 
is  now  established  that  there  is  no  conflict  be- 
tween the  Scripture  record  and  that  of  geology.^ 

That  the  Sabhath  was  primeval  has  been  dis- 
puted, and  its  origin  assigned  to  the  institutions 
of  the  Hebrew  people.  But  it  is  now  known 
that  it  was  observed  in  the  most  ancient  times, 
and  that  it  had  then  the  sweet  name  — "  a  day  of 
rest  for  the  heart."  ^ 

The  story  of  the  deluge  of  Noah,  recorded  in 
Genesis,  and  referred  to  by  Christ  as  an  actual 
event,  was  long  considered  the  "  deluge  myth," 
and  is  still  so  styled  by  those  who  do  not  seem 
to  have  heard  of  or  kept  pace  with,  the  progress 
of  the  science  of  geology.  It  is  now  fully  es- 
tablished that,  since  man  appeared  upon  the 
earth,  there  was  a  tremendous  flood,  which  sud- 
denly swept  him  and  the  races  of  animals  then 
living,  from  existence.  It  is  now  affirmed  by 
the  ablest  geologists  that  "  there  is  no  other  great 
physical  catastrophe  which  is  confirmed  by  so 

1 "  New  BibUcal  Guide,"  Vol.  I,  p.  40. 
a  "Cuneiform   Inscriptions   and   the   Old   Testament," 
Vol.  I,  p.  19. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  66 

imposing  an  array  of  witnesses  and  testimon- 
ials." 1 

The  unity  of  manki/nd,  as  descended  in  all  its 
branches  from  the'  family  of  Noah,  is  a  fact, 
the  knowledge  of  which,  we  owe  entirely  to  the 
Bible.  It  has,  however,  been  disputed  not  only 
by  infidels  like  Voltaire,  who  said  that  "  no  one 
who  was  not  blind  could  doubt  that  Whites  and 
Negroes  are  of  different  races,"  but  also  by 
statesmen  like  Calhoun  and  by  anthropologists 
of  wide  reputation.  But  great  naturalists,  such 
as  BufFon  and  Linnaeus,  have  always  maintained 
that  the  teaching  of  Scripture  is  correct;  and 
finally,  after  the  most  searching  and  even  micro- 
scopical study  of  race  differences,  Pritchard  de- 
clares, in  his  "  Researches  into  the  Physical  His- 
tory of  Mankind,"  that  Science  refuses  to  be 
responsible  for  the  objections  made  in  her  name. 
The  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  which,  to  the 
casual  reader,  is  an  uninteresting  list  of  names 
and  places,  is  the  most  important  and  trust- 
worthy document  which  ethnologists  possess, 
from  which  they  obtain  their  knowledge  of  the 
ancient  nations  and  places.^ 

The  tower  of  Babel  has  been  declared  unhis- 

^  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  July,  1907,  p.  544. 
2 «  New  Biblical  Guide,"  Vol.  I,  p.  414. 


66  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

torical,  but  it  has  been  identified  with  the  tower 
of  Borsippa,  a  mountain-like  structure  a  few 
miles  from  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  city  of  Baby- 
lon. Its  preservation  through  so  many  centur- 
ies is  ascribed  to  the  very  well  made  bricks  of 
which  it  is  built,  a  fact  which  is  particularly 
mentioned  in  the  account  in  Genesis  xi,  13. 

The  history  of  Abraham  has  been  refused  cre- 
dence on  the  ground  that  everything  about  him 
is  prehistoric,  and  therefore  utterly  uncertain, 
and  if  there  ever  was  such  a  man  he  must  have 
been  a  savage.  But  the  city  in  which  he  dwelt 
before  God  called  him,  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  has 
been  identified,  and  its  ruins  "  reveal  that  it  was, 
in  Abraham's  time,  a  center  of  learning  and  of 
civilization,  of  the  sciences  and  the  arts,  a  place 
of  wealth  and  luxury."  ^  One  of  the  ablest  of 
living  Assyriologists,  Professor  Clay,  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  has  said  that  the 
time  of  Abraham  "  was  only  about  midway  in 
the  written  history  of  man." 

The  beautiful  story  of  Joseph,  whose  charac- 
ter and  history  are  so  remarkably  like  that  of 
our  Redeemer,  has  been  assailed  as  unhistorical, 
and  many  of  its  details  have  been  said  to  be 
inconsistent  with  the  age  and   the  country   in 

1 "  New  Biblical  Guide,"  Vol.  II,  p.  87. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  67 

which  they  are  placed.  But  investigation  and 
discovery  have  proved  the  story  to  be  in  exact 
and  minute  harmony  with  the  Syria  and  Egypt 
of  that  time.  The  very  Pharaoh  who  made 
Joseph  his  prime  minister  has  been  identified  as 
Apophis  II,  one  of  the  Shepherd  Kings,  a 
foreign  dynasty,  of  a  race  akin  to  the  Hebrews, 
who  conquered  and  ruled  Egypt  for  centuries. 
It  has  been  learned  from  a  papyrus,  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  that  this  Pharaoh  became  the 
worshipper  of  one  God,^  a  fact  which  is  ex- 
plained by  the  Scripture  history  of  the  rescue 
of  Egypt  from  destruction  by  famine  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  servant  of  Jehovah. 

The  authorship  of  the  five  books  purporting 
to  have  been  written  by  Moses  has  been  denied 
to  him  and  assigmd  to  Ezra,  who  hved  a  thou- 
sand years  later  in  Persia  and  Babylon.  In 
that  case  these  books  would  contain  unmistak- 
able marks  of  their  origin  in  Persian  and  Baby- 
lonian words,  such  as  would  be  familiar  to 
Ezra.  On  the  contrary  they  contain  many 
Egyptian  words,  some  of  them  so  ancient  as  to 
have  lost  their  meaning  by  Ezra's  time,  and 
only  now  coming  to  be  understood  through  dis- 
coveries by  Egyptologists.     Almost  every   cir- 

1 M.  Mariette's  "  Histoire  Ancienne,"  p.  167. 


68  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

cumstance  of  the  Scriptural  history  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt  has  been  found  to  agree 
with  the  memorials  of  ancient  Egypt.  The  op- 
pression which  they  suffered,  which  Exodus  at- 
tributes to  the  fact  that  "  another  king  arose 
who  knew  not  Joseph,"  is  explained  by  the  re- 
covery of  sovereignty  by  an  Egyptian  dynasty, 
which  expelled  the  Shepherd  Kings.  The  very 
buildings  erected  by  the  Israelites  during  their 
bondage  have  been  found,  showing  bricks  at 
first  with  straw,  and  then  with  "  stubble,"  and 
finally  without  straw  or  stubble,  the  supply  hav- 
ing been  exhausted. 

The  Pharoah  of  the  oppression  has  been 
identified,  and  the  great  calamities  inflicted  upon 
the  nation  by  the  ten  plagues  and  the  burial  of 
Pharaoh's  army  in  the  Red  Sea,  are  attested  by 
the  fact  that  this  Pharaoh  had  no  son  to  suc- 
ceed him,  and  Egypt  lapsed  into  a  condition  of 
feebleness  and  unimportance,  which  lasted  for 
many  years. ^ 

The  Mosaic  code  has  been  declared  to  have 
been  impossible  on  account  of  the  rudeness  of 
the  age  in  which  it  purports  to  have  been  made, 
but  the  code  of  Hammurabi,  king  of  Babylon, 
has  been  found,  and  may  be  seen  in  the  British 
Museum,  a  code  which  antedates  the  Mosaic  law 

1  Speaker's  "  Commentary,"  Vol.  I,  p.  456. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  69 

by  500  years,  being,  in  some  respects,  still  more 
elaborate.^ 

The  wcmdermgs  of  the  Israelites  in  the  Wil- 
derness have  been  denied  to  be  historical,  and 
called  the  invention  of  Ezra,  or  some  other  priest 
who  lived  a  thousand  years  later  in  some  other 
land.  But  the  country  has  been  carefully  sur- 
veyed, the  record  of  the  journey  in  the  books 
of  Moses  compared  with  the  topography  and 
found  to  fit  it,  step  by  step,  station  after  sta- 
tion, until  the  surveyors  felt  no  doubt  that  "  the 
Pentateuch  was  written  by  one  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  events  which  he  describes."  ^ 

The  crossing  of  the  Jordcm  by  Joshua  and 
the  Israelites,  related  in  the  third  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Joshua,  has  been  disputed  on  the  ground 
that  no  such  overflow  of  the  river  at  the 
time  (April)  when  the  crossing  is  said  to  have 
taken  place  could  possibly  occur.  It  has  been 
said  that  at  that  time  the  winter  rains  have  long 
since  ceased,  and  the  tributaries  of  the  Jordan 
are  dried  up.  Moreover,  the  account  says  that 
the  overflow  took  place  at  the  "  time  of  har- 
vest," which  is  later  than  April,  so  that  the  time 
mentioned  seems  too  late  for  a  flood  and  too 
early    for   the   harvest.     But    Dr.    Thompson, 

^  Bible  Student  and  Teacher,  July,  1907,  p.  46. 
2  "  New  Biblical  Guide,"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  363. 


70  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

long  a  missionary  in  Palestine,  confirms  the 
Scripture.  He  says  that  the  Jordan  is  not  de- 
pendent upon  tributaries,  but  is  fed  by  great 
fountains,  which  become  swollen  by  the  melting 
snows  on  Hermon  and  Lebanon,  and  the  flood 
reaches  the  neighborhood  of  the  crossing  by  the 
middle  of  March,  and  continues  for  several 
months.  As  for  the  harvest,  that  takes  place  in 
the  same  locality  at  this  early  date,  because  the 
Jordan  Valley  is  thirteen  hundred  feet  below  sea 
level  and  has  a  tropical  climate.^  Thus  are  the 
speculations  of  skeptical  critics  shown  to  be 
baseless,  and  the  history  found  to  agree  with 
the  facts  of  the  locality. 

It  has  been  denied  that  the  city  of  Jerusalem 
bore  that  name  until  the  time  of  David,  and  its 
occurrence  in  the  account  of  the  Conquest  of 
Canaan  by  Joshua  proves,  it  has  been  said,  that 
that  account  was  wiitten  long  after  the  time  of 
Joshua.  But  among  the  finds  at  Tel-el- Amama, 
in  Egypt,  is  a  letter  from  the  king  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  it  is  now  evident  that  the  name  is 
Babylonian  and  came  into  Palestine  "  when 
Babylonian  writing  and  culture  first  penetrated 
to  the  west."  ^ 

The    history    of    the   period   of   David   amd 

1 "  The  Land  and  the  Book,"  Vol.  II,  p.  454. 
2  «  New  Biblical  Guide,"  Vol.  IV,  p.  397. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  71 

Solomon,  in  the  books  of  Samuel,  Kings  and 
Chronicles,  has  been  declared  to  be  unreliable, 
as  the  compositions^  of  writers  long  after  the 
age  described.  But  the  discoveries  of  archaeolo- 
gists all  strongly  confirm  the  Scripture  record. 
Two  discoveries  of  this  kind  may  be  mentioned 
here. 

First,  it  has  been  found  that  at  this  time  the 
rival  empires  of  Assyria  and  Egypt  were  both 
reduced  to  such  a  feeble  condition  as  to  allow 
David  and  Solomon  opportunity  to  augment 
their  forces  and  extend  their  conquests  without 
interference  from  any  great  power  of  the 
world. 

Second,  the  excavations  made  at  Jersulem  by 
Captain  Warren,  of  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Society,  disclosed  the  very  great  and  costly 
foundation-stones  of  the  Temple,  which  were 
prepared  and  laid  by  Phenician  builders  em- 
ployed by  Solomon,  with  the  very  builders'  marks 
for  rightly  placing  them  still  upon  them  in  red 
paint  and  in  Phenician  characters;  so  that  no 
fitting  was  necessary  at  the  Temple  site,  accord- 
ing to  the  account  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  First 
Kings.^ 

To  this  it  may  be  added  that  the  list,  in  the 
ninth  and  tenth  chapters  of  I  Kings,  of  articles 

1"  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,"  pp.  138,  139. 


7^  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

brought  by  the  navy  of  Solomon  from  Ophir," 
almug  trees,  gold,  silver,  ivory,  apes,  and  pea- 
cocks," has  been  interpreted  and  verified  by 
Max  Muller,  who  says  that  the  names  are 
Sanscrit,  the  language  which  was  spoken  at  that 
time  by  the  people  of  India,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Indus,  where  the  articles  could  be  found. 

It  has  been  denied  that  there  ever  was  such 
a  people  as  the  Hittites,  mentioned  in  Genesis 
X.  15:  II  Kings  vii.  6,  and  elsewhere  in  the  Old 
Testament.  This  denial  was  made  on  the 
ground  that  no  allusion  to  them  had  been  found 
in  any  other  book  than  the  Bible.  But  the 
monuments,  both  of  Egypt  and  of  the  Hittites 
themselves,  have  given  us  accurate  portraits  of 
these  people,  and  we  now  know  that  they  were  a 
great  and  warlike  race,  who  were  in  Southern 
Palestine  in  the  days  of  Abraham,  but  had  been 
driven  back  to  Northern  Syria  in  the  time  of 
Joshua.^ 

The  scerw  on  Mownt  Carmel,  when,  after  a 
severe  famine,  Elijah  challenged  the  priests  of 
Baal  to  prove  the  power  of  their  divinity  by 
bringing  down  fire  from  heaven  to  consume  their 
sacrifice,  has  been  discredited  as  "  legendary  " 

1  Sayce's  "  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  pp. 
15,  16,  140-143. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  73 

and  the  "  creative  work  of  popular  fancy."  As 
yet  the  history  admits  of  the  comparison  with 
the  results  of  research  only  at  two  points,  but  at 
both  of  these  it  •  is  confirmed.  The  famine 
spoken  of  is  proved  by  Josephus  to  have  oc- 
curred at  the  time  mentioned  by  the  quotation 
from  Menander,  an  ancient  Greek  historian. 
The  peculiar  manner  in  which  the  priests  of 
Baal  are  said  to  have  worshipped,  leaping  and 
cutting  themselves  with  knives,  is  confirmed  by 
an  inscription  found  upon  an  ancient  temple  of 
Baal  at  Beyrouth,  and  by  descriptions  of  such 
worship  by  Lucian,  Cattulus,  and  by  Livy.^ 

The  healing  of  Naamariy  the  Syrian,  by  Elisha 
has  been  dismissed  by  a  recent  critic  as  a  "  cur- 
ious marvel,  of  no  practical  importance."  But  as 
our  Lord  spoke  of  it  as  an  actual  occurrence  of 
great  significance,  it  seems  worth  while  to  refer 
to  it.  The  only  real  difiSculty  in  the  account 
is  in  Naaman's  boast  that  Abana  and  Pharpar, 
rivers  of  Damascus,  were  better  than  all  the 
waters  of  Israel.  The  difllculty  grew  out  of  the 
fact  that  there  is  but  one  river  at  the  city  of 
Damascus.  But  it  is  now  known  that,  in 
Naaman's  time,  that  was  the  name  of  the 
country/  as  well  as  of  the  city,  and  not  far  from 

i"New  Biblical  Guide,"  Vol.  V,  pp.  389-398. 


74  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

the  city  the  two  rivers  are  to  be  found,  suffi- 
ciently beautiful  and  important  to  justify  the 
Syrian's  partiality.^ 

The  book  of  Esther  has  been  declared  to  be  a 
"  work  of  the  imagination,"  without  the  marks  of 
an  historical  composition."  Almost  every  per- 
son in  it  and  nearly  every  event  or  custom  re- 
lated, has  been  assailed  as  fictitious.  The 
writers  of  articles  in  recent  Bible  dictionaries  and 
encyclopaedias  do  not  seem  to  have  learned  that 
the  historical  accuracy  of  the  book  has  been 
thoroughly  established,  but  such  has  been  the 
case.  Ahasuerus  has  been  identified  as  the 
Xerxes  the  Great  of  Persia ;  Shushan  the  palace 
has  been  found  and  described,  and  the  book  has 
become  our  highest  authority  for  the  manners, 
customs  and  events  of  the  time  and  the  country 
to  which  it  relates.^ 

The  hook  of  Jonah  has  been  called  a  fable, 
and  we  have  been  taught,  in  the  name  of  Science, 
that  the  swallowing  of  Jonah  by  a  fish  is  an 
impossibility  on  account  of  the  contracted 
throat  of  the  whale,  the  largest  fish  of  which  we 
know.  As  it  is  not  said  that  it  was  a  whale, 
but  that  "  God  prepared  a  great  fish,"  it  is  not 

1  Dr.    Porter   in  Journal   of  Sacred  Literature,   New 
Series,  Vol.  V,  p.  46. 

2  Bible  Student  and  Teacher,  June,  1905,  p.  437. 


FACTS  NOW  PROVED  76 

necessary  to  meet  this  objection,  but  it  is  now 
removed  by  Science  itself.  It  is  now  known 
that  of  some  fifty-one  species  of  whale,  of  only 
one,  the  Greenland  whale,  is  it  true  that  the 
throat  is  so  contracted.^ 

1  mention  but  one  more  of  these  disputed  facts, 
and  it  is  a  most  notable  one. 

Belshazzar,  the  king  of  Babylon,  at  whose 
idolatrous  feast  the  miraculous  handwriting  ap- 
peared upon  the  wall  and  was  interpreted  by  the 
prophet  Daniel,  has  been  declared  to  be  a  myth, 
and  the  book  of  Daniel,  therefore,  a  forgery. 
The  ground  of  this  charge  was  the  absence  of 
this  king's  name  from  any  known  history. 
But  a  cylinder  which  has  been  disinterred  at  Ur, 
Abraham's  own  city  in  Chaldea,  and  which  is 
now  in  the  British  Museum,  contains  an  in- 
scription, which  is  a  prayer  of  Nabonidus,  the 
last  king  of  Babylon,  that  his  god  would  be 
gracious  to  Belshazzar,  his  eldest  son.  This  in- 
scription convinced  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  that 
the  son  had  been  co-regent  with  his  father  at 
the  time  the  city  was  captured,  and  this  explains 
why  Daniel  was  made  the  third  ruler  in  the 
kingdom,  as  stated  in  Daniel  v.  39.^ 

This  Hst  might  be  extended  much  farther,  did 

^  Bible  Student  and  Teacher,  Sept.,  1905,  p.  176. 

2  «  New  BibUcal  Guide,"  Vol.  II,  p.  86. 


76  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

the  limits  of  this  work  permit.  But  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  how  often  denials  of  Scrip- 
ture statements  are  made  in  pure  wantonness  of 
spirit  and  sheer  ignorance  of  facts,  instead  of 
in  sober  regard  for  truth  and  a  modest  hesita- 
tion to  impugn  a  great  and  venerable  authority. 
Those  who  have  realized,  in  the  reading  of  this 
chapter,  how  many  and  how  great  have  been  the 
"  mistakes  "  of  those  who  have  charged  Moses 
and  other  Bible  authors  with  error  will,  it  is 
hoped,  be  slow,  henceforth,  to  give  too  hasty 
credence  to  such  charges,  and  will  have  a  whole- 
some confidence  that  if  mistakes  have  been  made 
it  is  not  the  greatest  book  in  the  world  that  has 
made  them. 


XI 

A    FINAL    SURVEY    OF    THE    FACTS 

Now  that  we  have  glanced  at  some  of  the 
facts  of  Faith,  it  is  possible  to  form  some  proper 
conception  of  their  meaning  and  value.  We 
ought  by  this  time  to  realize  their  importance. 

To  begin  with,  how  Twmierous  they  are ! 

Let  no  one  suppose  we  have  exhausted  the  list, 
or  even  mentioned  the  most  of  them!  In  truth, 
we  have  only  produced  samples  of  that  vast  host 
which  only  He  "  who  calleth  the  stars  by  name  " 
can  number.  The  Bible,  Science  of  every  kind. 
History,  personal  experiences,  all  departments  of 
human  life  and  human  knowledge  are  full  of 
them. 

Isaac  Newton  said  that  he  had  "  only  picked 
up  a  few  pebbles  on  the  beach  "  of  truth.  That 
is  all  any  one  can  do.  There  are  so  many  facts, 
there  is  so  much  to  be  known,  that,  after  all  our 
learning,  the  most  still  remains  unknown.  That, 
however,  cannot  justly  deprive  what  is  in  sight 
of  our  admiration. 

The  ore  that  still  remains  untouched  in  the 
mountains  is,  perhaps,  far  greater  in  quantity 
than  that  which  has  been  mined.  But  when  one 
77 


78  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

thinks  of  the  immense  amount  that  has  been 
taken  out,  and  is  now  being  manufactured  or  is 
visible  in  structures  and  implements  and  machin- 
ery and  all  kinds  of  forms  for  all  kinds  of  uses, 
the  total  seems  overwhelmingly  enormous. 

So  of  the  known  facts  which  are  available  for 
Faith's  purposes;  they  are  like  the  sand  that  is 
upon  the  seashore,  innumerable. 

But  not,  like  the  grains  of  sand,  do  they 
seem  small  and  insignificant.  On  the  contrary, 
they  impress  us  as  great  facts,  if  we  have  ob- 
tained any  adequate  idea  of  their  magnitude. 
Their  importance,  in  the  world  of  morals  and  re- 
ligion, is  only  symbolized  by  that  of  the  mighty 
suns  and  systems  of  the  physical  universe. 

For  example,  consider  the  greatness  of  the 
fact  of  the  Bible!  That  there  should  be  one 
book,  far  and  away  the  greatest  of  all  books, 
even  as  literature;  and  when  considered  in  its 
moral  and  religious  character  and  influence, 
what  the  dying  Sir  Walter  Scott  called  it,  the 
one  book  of  the  world!  What  a  gigantic  fact 
that  is,  that,  among  books,  one  stands  hy  itself, 
far  apart  from  all  others,  alone  and  unapproach- 
able! 

What  a  great  fact  is  Jesus  Christ!  That  a 
young  man  who  had  lived  only  to  the  age  of 
thirty-three,  lived  a  private  and  obscure  life  for 


A  FINAL  SURVEY  79 

all  but  three  of  those  years,  wrote  not  a  word  to 
leave  to  posterity,  died  a  death  of  shame,  re- 
pudiated and  denounced  as  a  criminal  by  his  own 
nation,  should  have  become  the  greatest  name 
in  history,  and  influenced  all  succeeding  ages  for 
good  more  than  any  or  all  others  —  what  a 
colossal,  even  infinite  fact  this  is! 

What  a  great  fact  the  Church  is!  It  sprang 
into  existence,  and  was  numbered  by  thousands, 
onli/  fifty  dat^s  after  its  founder  had  been  shame- 
fully executed  as  a  criminal,  and  in  the  very  city 
of  his  execution. 

Withm  thirty  years  it  established  itself  in 
the  great  cities  of  the  known  world,  and  re- 
peated the  wonder  of  the  Mother  Church  at 
Jerusalem,  by  great  bodies  of  disciples,  in  town 
and  country,  in  Asia,  Europe  and  Africa. 

It  is  now,  after  nineteen  centuries  of  existence, 
the  most  powerful  religious  body  in  the  world, 
numbering  its  adherents  by  many  millions,  and 
exercising  its  influence  over  the  greatest  nations 
and  the  leading  races  of  mankind. 

It  finds  members  even  in  the  most  degraded 
and  depraved  persons,  of  the  lowest  and  most 
brutalized  classes,  all  over  the  earth ;  transforms 
them  into  bright  and  shining  examples  of  the 
noblest  types  of  human  character;  and  enrolls 
them  as  citizens  of  that  kingdom  of  heaven,  of 


80  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

which  the  pure  and  perfect  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
only,  though  the  invisible,  King. 

Its  destruction  has  been  threatened  by  every 
form  of  physical  or  mental  force  which  the 
world  possesses. 

Its  martyrs  are  numbered  by  millions. 

Its  most  formidable  eneTtiy  has  always  been, 
and  still  is,  a  corrupt  church  which  usurps  its 
functions,  imposes  itself  upon  human  credulity 
as  the  only  true  church,  and  by  its  scandalous 
superstitions  and  crimes  brings  discredit  and 
disgrace  upon  the  fair  name  of  Christianity. 

It  has  survived  all  its  persecutions  by  Judaism, 
Paganism,  Romanism,  and  every  species  of  false 
religion;  it  rode,  like  the  ark  of  Noah,  the 
deluge  of  ignorance  and  barbarism  which  we 
call  the  Dark  Ages ;  has  vanquished  the  repeated 
onslaughts  of  infidelity  which  have  followed  in 
these  later  centuries;  and  now  penetrates  and 
dominates  the  life  of  the  twentieth  century,  with 
the  confidence  of  eternal  youth  and  the  prestige 
of  unconquerable  power. 

These  great  facts,  like  the  great  stones  in 
the  ancient  wall  of  Jerusalem,  not  only  astonish 
us  by  their  magnitude,  but  unite  to  furnish  a 
substantial  and  indestructible  foundation  for 
faith.  How  solidly  and  immovably  the  Bible, 
and  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Church,  and  Christian 


A  FINAL  SURVEY  81 

Experience,  and  Nature,  and  History,  stand 
together;  opposing  their  united  weight  to  all 
the  efforts  of  time  and  circumstance  to  disturb 
them !  Fancies  may  be  displaced  and  dissipated, 
but  facts  remain  unchanged  and  immovable 
from  generation  to  generation  and  from  age  to 
age. 

The  facts  of  religion,  like  the  facts  of  science, 
are  too  numerous  and  too  powerful  to  be  af- 
fected by  doubt  and  dispute,  when  once  they  are 
seen  and  understood. 

It  was  the  faUi/ng  of  an  apple  which  is  said 
to  have  suggested  to  Newton  the  idea  of  the 
attraction  of  gravitation.  But  that  was  only 
one  small  fact  out  of  myriads  that  might  be 
mentioned  of  the  same  kind.  Air  falls,  water 
falls,  the  sun  and  stars  fall,  the  whole  universe, 
in  all  its  parts,  exhibits  the  same  phenomenon. 
When  once  this  vast  array  of  facts  is  perceived, 
the  conclusion  to  which  it  leads  is  irresistible. 
No  sane  and  intelligent  mind  any  longer  dis- 
putes the  doctrine  of  gravitation.  To  do  so 
would  be  to  convict  one's  self  either  of  ignorance 
or  of  the  lack  of  common  sense. 

The  facts  on  which  Christian  faith  rests  are  of 
the  same  compelling  kind  —  so  many,  so  united, 
so  irresistible,  that  when  once  candidly  faced 
and  truly  appreciated,  they  must  be  accepted. 


82  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

It  is  that  Christicm  who  beholds  this  adaman- 
tine foundation  of  facts  which  underiies  his 
faith,  who  remains  undisturbed  by  all  the  re- 
peated assaults  of  hostile  criticism. 

His  faith  is  truly  scientific,  because  he  has 
considered  and  given  proper  place  to  the  facts 
which  bear  upon  the  great-  questions  of  re- 
ligion. 

He  sees  that  wnbelief  is  anything  but  scienti- 
ficy  since  it  refuses  a  candid  investigation  of  the 
facts,  and  is,  in  its  very  nature,  incapable  of 
appreciating  them. 

As  for  rival  religionSy  what  have  they  to 
show  which  can  for  a  moment  parallel  the  array 
of  facts  which  substantiate  Christianity.? 

Which  of  them  has  a  BiblCy  a  Jesus  Christ,  and 
a  Church  to  put  beside  these  great  facts  of  the 
Christian  religion.? 

Can  you  put  Mohammed,  the  Koran,  and  their 
Arabs  and  Turks  beside  Jesus,  the  Bible,  and  the 
Christian  Church,  and  think  that  they  do  not 
suffer  by  comparison  ? 

It  is  but  too  evident  what  that  religion  has 
done  for  its  votaries,  for  the  judgment  of  Chris- 
tendom was  long  since  coined  into  the  phrase, 
"  the  unspeakable  Turk.'* 

Carlyle  expressed  the  sense  of  the  civilized 
world,  regarding  the  most  favorable  view  to  take 


A  FINAL  SURVEY  83 

of  Moslemism,  when  he  called  it  in  his  "  Heroes 
and  Hero-Worship,"  "  a  kind  of  bastard  Chris- 
tianity." All  that  is  true  and  good  in  it 
filtered  into  it  from  Christianity,  which  was  al- 
ready nearly  six  centuries  old  when  Mohammed 
was  bom. 

As  for  the  Koran,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  of  it 
that,  compared  with  the  "  Arabian  Nights  En- 
tertainment," the  most,  and  almost  the  only, 
widely-known  book  of  Arabian  authorship,  it 
is  equally  wild  and  fanciful,  equally  a  work  of 
fiction.  The  stories  it  tells  of  Solomon  are  bor- 
rowed fables  from  the  Jewish  Talmud.  But 
here  its  resemblance  to  the  "  Arabian  Nights  " 
ends,  for  that  is  one  of  the  world's  favorite 
story  books,  and  the  Koran  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  stupid  book  in  the  world.  "  Insupportable 
stupidity,"  says  Carlyle,  who  is  disposed  to  say 
all  the  good  he  can  of  it ;  and  he  adds,  "  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  any  mortal  ever  could  con- 
sider this  Koran  a  book  written  in  heaven.  .  . 
or  indeed  as  a  book  at  all,  and  not  a  bewildered 
rhapsody." 

What  other  religion  is  worth  mentioning  as 
a  possible  rival  to  that  of  Jesus.''  When  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold's  "  Light  of  Asia "  was  pub- 
lished, it  was  fancied  by  many  that  he  had  dis- 
covered   in    Buddha    another    Jesus.     But    the 


84.  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

mirage  he  produced  soon  faded  into  nothingness, 
leaving  Jesus  in  his  unapproachable  glory. 

Sir  Edwin  Arnold  said,  in  effect,  to  a  veteran 
Christian  missionary,  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  William 
Ashmore,  who  was  his  companion  in  a  voyage 
to  the  East,  that  he  had  had  no  idea  of  making 
the  "  Light  of  Asia  "  the  equal  of  the  "  Light  of 
the  World,"  and  considered  one  verse  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mownt  as  worth  more  than  all  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos. 

We  are,  then,  and  we  cannot  repeat  it  too 
often  or  realize  it  too  deeply,  dealing  with  a 
world  of  fact  and  reality  when  we  are  examining 
the  documents  and  credentials  of  the  Christian 
faith. 

All  other  beliefs  have  little  to  show  us  except 
the  cloud-land  of  speculations,  fables  and  fic- 
tions. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  tell  where  fog  and  cloud 
cease  and  solid  earth  begins. 

It  begins  with  the  facts  of  Christian  faith. 
As  we  study  them  we  feel  that  we  tread  on  the 
firm  ground  of  truth  and  reality. 

But  wherefore? 

For  what  purpose  are  foundations,  but  to 
support  superstructures  ? 

We  lay  foundations  only  because  we  desire 
to  rear  enduring  edifices  upon  them. 


A  FINAL  SURVEY  85 

That  deep  and  massive  foundation,  which  is 
the  wonder  of  explorers  at  Jerusalem,  was  laid 
that  Solomon's  magnificent  Temple  might  be 
based  upon  it. 

When  we  have  the  facts  of  Christianity  fully 
in  our  possession,  in  all  their  solidity  and  cer- 
tainty, we  are  inevitably  impelled  to  rear  upon 
them  the  mugnvficent  temple  of  Christian  doc- 
trine. 

For  we  instinctively  ask,  what  do  these  facts 
mean?  What  truths  do  they  imply?  What 
becomes  evident  from  their  existence?  What  do 
they  teach  which  it  is  important  to  understand? 

When  we  have  thought  out  our  answers  to 
these  questions  we  have  discovered  the  doctrines 
in  which  we  must  believe.  When  we  have  stated 
our  doctrines  in  words  we  have  our  Creed. 

Let  us  not  be  alarmed  at  these  terms!  They 
have  been  used  to  frighten  people.  The  soph- 
ists of  this  generation  talk  of  "  doctrine  "  and 
"  dogma  "  as  not  only  useless  and  incumbrances, 
but  as  if  they  are  a  kind  of  mental  hydrophobia. 

It  is  common  in  these  days  to  hear  the  promise 
of  a  new  religion  which  is  to  be  creedless. 

They  who  make  this  promise  do  not  realize 
that  it  is  non-sense,  unworthy  of  an  ordinary 
mind,  much  less  of  one  who  claims  to  be  able  to 
teach  men. 


86  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

To  be  creedless  and  without  doctrine,  a  re- 
ligion must  be  truthless  and  idea-less ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  must  be  thoughtless  and  senseless.  It 
must  have  no  facts,  for  froTn  facts  spring  doc- 
trmes. 

Politics  has  its  doctrines,  true  and  false.  We 
speak  of  the  "  Monroe  doctrine,"  by  which  we 
mean  President  Monroe's  idea  of  the  peculiar 
relation  of  the  United  States  to  the  other  na- 
tions of  America. 

That  "  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal " 
is  a  doctrine  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

That  all  government  is  rightfully  "  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people  "  was 
a  favorite  doctrine  of  President  Lincoln. 

Science  has  its  doctrines,  and  always  has  had 
them.  Concerning  the  facts  which  it  discovers 
it  asks,  what  do  they  teach.?  The  answers  to 
that  question  which  it  gives  are  its  doctrines. 

Sometimes  they  are  true,  and  sometimes 
false. 

If  they  are  false,  it  is  either  because  they  are 
hastily  made,  before  sufficient  knowledge  of 
needed  facts  has  been  obtained,  or  because 
human  reason  has  been  unable  to  comprehend 
their  real  significance. 

The  fact  that  water  will  not  rise  in  a  pump 
above  thirty-two  feet  was  supposed  by  Galileo 


A  FINAL  SURVEY  87 

to  teach  the  doctrine  that  "  Nature  abhors  a 
vacuum."  This  was  to  attribute  thought  and 
feeling  to  the  inanimate  world,  and  Galileo 
reahzed  that  is  was  •  unsatisfactory ;  but  in  the 
lack  of  additional  knowledge,  it  was  the  best 
that  he  could  da. 

Torricelli  conceived  the  idea  that  what  sup- 
ported the  water  in  the  pump  was  the  weight  of 
the  atmosphere,  and  partially  proved  it  to  be 
true  by  his  barometer,  in  which  a  column  of 
mercury,  which  is  fourteen  times  heavier  than 
water,  stands  at  a  correspondingly  low  level. 

Pascal  reasoned  that  if  the  weight  of  the 
atmosphere  balances  these  columns  at  their  re- 
spective heights  at  the  sea-level,  when  the  barom- 
eter is  carried  to  the  top  of  a  mountain  the 
columns  will  fall  a  distance  according  to  the 
height  of  the  mountain.  This  experiment  being 
tried  and  proving  successful,  the  new  doctrine 
was  established.  Calculations  made  afterwards 
settled  the  question  of  the  approximate  height 
of  the  atmosphere.  It  had  been  imagined  as  ex- 
tending  to  the  moon,  but  was  now  found  to  be 
practically  limited  to  the  height  of  fori:y-five 
miles. 

These  illustrations  may  suffice  to  show  how 
doctrines  spring  from  facts,  and  not  facts  from 
doctrines. 


88  THE  FACTS  OF  FAITH 

Given  a  body  of  facts,  and  doctrines  follow 
as  necessary  consequences.  We  can  escape  the 
doctrines  only  by  refusing  to  look  at  the  facts, 
or  by  disproving  the  facts. 

If  we  are  willing  to  see  them  and  cannot  dis- 
prove them,  we  naturally  and  necessarily  come 
to  some  conclusions  regarding  their  significance. 
These  conclusions  are  doctrines.  They  are  the 
truths  which  we  have  learned  from  the  facts 
which  we  have  found  out.  The  statements  of 
these  truths  which  we  make  to  ourselves,  and  ac- 
cept as  established,  are  our  creeds,  political,  sci- 
entific or  religious,  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  facts  on  which  they  are  based. 

AU  men  mat/  be  said  to  have  a  religious  creed 
of  some  kind. 

Even  the  agnostic's  denial,  that  he  can  know 
anything  about  God,  becomes  his  creed,  his  con- 
clusion regarding  the  matter  of  religion ;  and  it 
is  a  creed  that  determines  his  attitude  toward 
worship,  prayer,  Christ  and  the  Church,  equally 
with  that  of  the  devout  believer. 

The  facts  of  religion,  moreover,  have  this  pe- 
culiarity, namely,  that  some  conclusion  mitst  be 
made,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  positively  or 
negatively,  concerning  them;  since  to  reject 
them,  as  well  as  to  accept  them  or  even  to  ignore 


A  FINAL  SURVEY         ^     '  '^9' 

them,  is  a  conclusion  by  which  duty  as  well  as 
destiny,  good  and  evil,  joy  and  sorrow,  the  aims 
and  purposes  of  Hfe,  its  possibilities,  successes 
and  failures,  are  all 'determined. 

The  doctrines  or  politics  of  science  are  com- 
paratively unimportant:  we  may  leave  them  un- 
settled and  suffer  no  serious  injury. 

But  the  fact  of  an  Incarnation,  if  it  be  proved, 
cannot  innocently  or  safely  be  left  unconsidered. 
A  divine  Revelation  is  not  a  fact  about  which 
any  one  can  afford  to  have  no  opinion. 

Duty  and  destiny y  and  everything  else  belong- 
ing to  many  are  not  the  same  thvng,  whether  these 
arey  or  are  noty  facts. 

If  there  be  a  Revelation  it  is  because  I  need 
one;  and  my  voyage  of  life  is  safe  or  perilous, 
and  I  make  it  with  or  without  peace  of  mind, 
as  I  am,  or  am  not,  conscious  that  I  sail  by  my 
chart  or  utterly  neglect  it. 

Upon  the  facts  of  religion  there  can  be,  and 
there  ought  to  be,  reared  a  super-structure  of 
doctrine  which  is  to  the  soul  a  refuge,  a  fortress 
and  a  home.  It  may  be  small  and  simple,  like 
an  Esquimau's  snow  hut,  but  even  that  poor 
house  protects  the  inmate  from  winter  storms  and 
Arctic  cold.  It  may  be  large  and  elaborate,  and 
worthy  to  be  called  a  system,  for  the  materials 


W  l*Hfi  f'ACTS  OF  FAITH 

are  ample,  and  the  constructive  power  of  the 
Christian  mind  is  able  to  rear  a  Palace  of  Truth 
which  shall  be  both  grand  and  beautiful. 

Let  Faith,  then,  know  her  facts! 

Let  her  realize  that  they  are  facets,  not  fancies, 
fictions  or  phantasms ! 

Let  her  buMd  upon  them  her  house  of  rest! 

And  when  the  winds  of  dovbt  blow,  and  the 
floods  of  trovble  come,  the  house  will  not  fall, 

FOE  IT  IS  BUILT  UPON  A  EOCK. 


UNIVEESITY  OF  CALIFOENIA  LIBRARY, 
BERKELEY 


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